Author Archives: Matt Myers

(This article was first published in the Oxford Left Review – Spring 2013: http://oxfordleftreview.wordpress.com/olr9-2/) The British student movement of 2010 should warrant little nostalgia. Two years on, fees have tripled; courses have been cut; support has been pulled; and the student … Continue reading →

Egypt stands at a crossroads. Its future remains uncertain, and the past cannot be escaped. What comes next depends on the outcome of the various conflicts that are defining Egyptian political, economic, and social life after the Revolution. The Muslim … Continue reading →

Born in a village in northern Afghanistan, Mohamed Sadiq never planned on becoming a cab driver in West London. Fate, it seems, had other ideas. A man of modest height, average build, jet black hair and brown eyes, Sadiq doesn’t … Continue reading →

One unavoidable question looms in the run up to the 2015 General Election: how different would a Labour government be? Government debt is over £1 trillion while the combined debt of public, household and business stands at 500% of GDP. … Continue reading →

The invitation of both Julian Assange and Nick Griffin to speak at events in Oxford has raised serious arguments over how students can respond. The call for a ‘No Platform’ has been a common response for both cases. The slogan … Continue reading →

Narcissism is a misunderstood condition. Narcissus, the young man who falls in love with his own reflection in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is not (as the common conception goes) a victim of vanity or self-absorption. In fact his affliction was quite the … Continue reading →

Benny Wenda is a freedom fighter. His demeanour exudes kindness and gentleness; his eyes bear the toll of a lifetime of heartache and frustration. These are the first impressions I had of one of the most truly exceptional people I … Continue reading →

Political stability and Colombia have always been uneasy bedfellows.  Plagued for decades by endemic government corruption and brutality, a fierce civil war, and incessant inter-community strife; Colombia used to be the model for how broken a Latin American society could … Continue reading →

A day many of our political and media elite would rather have avoided:  George Galloway’s ‘Bradford Spring’. Galloway, it seems, has never been one for the understatement. He is, and always will, be a divisive political animal. Yet the perennial underdog … Continue reading →

Our generation lives with the hangover from the privatisation, marketisation, and outsourcing of successive governments after the 1980s. For 30 years (and counting), the restructuring of our whole economy and society under market-principles has been gospel to large sections of … Continue reading →