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Not leading but drowning

Editorial: Not flocks or herds

In our February/March issue, Red Pepper co-editor Michael Calderbank warns that in our current system financial pressures will trump democratic concerns - whichever party is in power.

Hilary Wainwright examines the Northern Rock experience and explains efforts to develop new community-responsive models of investment. Molly Scott Cato argues for public ownership of the financial sector to make it more ecologically sustainable and Costas Lapavitsas shows how to make banking more transparent and accountable.

In our cover story, Stuart White argues that models of republican democracy - incorporating a socialist and green commitment to economic equality - could reinvigorate the left.

Joe Higgins says that trade unions can no longer be relied upon to represent the people, while Jeremy Dear and Natalie Fenton argue that journalists - the original voice of the people - feel increasingly constrained to represent the elites.

Plus, international coverage of Palestine, Chile, Western Sahara and Italy. In our culture section Mike Marqusee celebrates flamenco, Ewa Jasiewicz looks at Austrian director Michael Haneke’s film The White Ribbon, an unflinching gaze into the roots of violence, we take an illustrated look at the new book Dress Behind Bars: Prison Clothing as Criminality. Plus much more, see our full contents list here

From Seattle to Copenhagen: 10 years of resistance

Editorial: A climate for change

In our latest issue, John Hilary examines the global justice movement’s decade since Seattle and Marianne Maeckelbergh looks at the movement’s democratic decision-making. Tim Jones argues the global North owes the South a climate debt.

In Transitional demands, Sarah Irving shows how permaculture-style transition towns are reducing carbon emissions and Chris Baugh explores the UK unions’ response to the urgency of climate change. Alex Nunns assesses the damage a Conservative government might do to public services. Mike Marqusee and Heather Wakefield on public spending cuts and how to fightback. We interview radical lawyer Michael Mansfield and meet Wu Ming, the Italian novelist collective.

Our international coverage includes Chemical Criminals, twenty five years after Bhopal. Bilal El-Amine on Hizbullah and political Islam in Lebanon and twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we ask if there’s any hope for the left in Eastern Europe? And Pablo Navarrete and Steve Ellner look at popular democracy taking root in Venezuela’s barrios

Plus Rajkamal Kahlon uses autopsy reports from US military bases and prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan as a starting point for her art that we reproduce here. Steve Platt asks is Brecht still relevant? And Michael Calderbank reviews Angels of Anarchy, a major exhibition of women surrealists

Editorial: Reclaiming our food systems

In our October/November issue we examine the current global food crisis and call for radical change and food sovereignty. Red Pepper’s new co-editor James O’Nions says that the issue of who ‘controls our food system is a matter of basic democracy’.

Sue Branford investigates the global land grab sparked by the food crisis that is seeing rich countries buying up land in the poorer world to ‘secure’ their food supplies. Branford warns that this is a ‘Time bomb for the world’s ability to cope with climate change’. Kath Dalmeny, policy director for Sustain, argues that while we need new food policies to get a healthy, ethical and sustainable food system, government action is ‘inadequate and contradictory’. And Matt Sellwood profiles a Hackney organisation that is trying to change the way we get and eat our food.

In the build up to December’s Copenhagen Climate Summit, Michael Meacher MP says the government’s low carbon transition plan is built on an accounting trick that will make developing countries shoulder the burden. Plus Oscar Reyes examines the plethora of protests and actions planned for summit. And we also analyse the political debates going on inside Climate Camp.

More than 35 years on Hilary Wainwright and Andy Bowman ask what relevance does the Lucas Aerospace workers’ alternative economic plan have for red-green thinking today. Mike Marqusee argues that the ‘war on cancer’ is a misplaced metaphor for what is as much a political as a medical issue. Andrea D’Cruz travels to Abu Dis to find out more about the arrest and detention of Palestinian children.

Author Alastair Crooke believes that the left needs a more complex understanding of political Islam. But Saeed Rahnema and Azar Majedi strongly reject his interpretation of events in Iran. Plus, we investigate government support for the arms industry and ask is ‘community justice’ a more progressive approach to crime?

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