1 December 2005: a very odd and rather beautiful feeling

I'm just back from speaking to an audience of 200+ people in Keele on the subject of fascism and the labour movement. What impressed me most was the organisation behind the event : an audience drawn from the local community, reflective, with many different politics clearly on show: the very opposite of the modern, unthinking, cost- effective Blairite university. All praise to Owen Powell, who has run the World Affairs Group there since its inception, 25 years ago. 

My reason for being so happy is actually different: the news that my book Dissident Marxism has been translated into Greek, and in time for next year's ESF. There was a copy waiting for me in the post when I got home: it has a beautiful cover; with pictures of anti-capitalist protesters waving red flags. I haven't been so excited about a new book, since my first was published six years ago.