Taylor Swift: Culture, Capital, and Critique Paperback – 30 Jun. 2025 by Hannah McCann (Editor), Eloise Faichney (Editor), Rebecca Trelease (Editor), Emma Whatman (Editor), Routledge

 "At the moment, it wouldn't be going too far to say [Swift] is one of the most powerful people in the world."

Georgia Carroll

How has Swift achieved such phenomenal success with albums like this? To some extent, her rise can be attributed to the persona she has cultivated, together with the music industry. In the interest of mass appeal, the singer offers something to everyone: a little bit acoustic and country, a little bit electric and urban, a soupçon of sexiness, a pinch of feminism, and a lot of spectacle. At the same time, Swift has taken pains not to offend anyone and to remain relatively “apolitical.” She won’t “corrupt the youth” or inspire critical thinking, which is music to the ears of the industry.

Eric Schreiber

 “If the time becomes slothful and heavy, he [the poet] knows how to arouse it . . . he can make every word he speaks draw blood. Whatever stagnates in the flat of custom or obedience or legislation, he never stagnates. Obedience does not master him; he masters it. …”

Walt Whitman

You've got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down you just stood there grinnin'
You've got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that's winnin'…

Positively 4th Street Song by Bob Dylan ‧ 1965

The essays in this book came about through a so-called Swiftposium held in Melbourne, Australia, before the start of Taylor Swift’s 2024 Eras world tour. The Symposium was the first of its kind. Its remit was an academic examination of the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift.

This, however, was not a regular academic conference. Despite the organisers going out of their way to say it was not a fan convention, it was pretty clear that the speakers and the audience had other ideas.

According to one report, “Fans were also desperate to take part, and on Sunday, hundreds of people—walking advertisements for rhinestones, cowboy boots, and Swift's signature red lip—flocked into Melbourne's iconic Capitol Theatre to hear lectures about the megastar. At a sold-out friendship bracelet-making workshop beforehand, 19-year-old Soumil says the event - run by RMIT University - is helping heal the wounds left by the ticketing bloodbath of last year, so much for academic impartiality.”

As this quote demonstrates, the degree of impartiality of these essay contributions leaves a lot to be desired . Swift fanatic Rachel Feder writes “ I was first introduced to Taylor Swift through my students, and then through my relationship with Tiffany, who grew up with the albums. She even has a picture of meeting Swift after a concert when she was 15. She's an OG Swiftie.

At the Grammys last year, when Swift announced her “Tortured Poets Department” album, Tiffany texted me, saying, “This is your album. This is your era,” because Romanticist tortured poets are my whole thing. I shot off a quick email to my editor that said, “Hey, sorry to email you at night about Taylor Swift, but do we want to do ‘A Swiftie’s Guide to Tortured Poets?’” The team had all these incredible insights on how to make it capacious, like a “Swifties’ Guide to Literature” slash “Literary Guide to Taylor Swift.” Then I brought Tiffany on board, and we wrote it so fast. We had seven weeks to do the first draft, and we got through every album before “Tortured Poets” dropped in April 2024. We experienced that album in real time, writing that chapter in two weeks, which was a nerdy, bookish Swiftie’s dream.”[1]

It does not need an academic to tell you that Swift is big business. With a fan base of over 500 million, she is the highest-earning pop star of all time and is now a billionaire and a member of the American oligarch club. Her billionaire status has largely come off the back of fairly routine and uninteresting songwriting. Swift admits that her favourite songs are the ones where she has to think.[2] If that is the case, then only two albums from her extensive catalogue, Folklore and Evermore, are worth listening to.

One thing is clear from the essays in this book and in general is that Swift is protected and defended by not only a group of fanatical academics, but she is a fully paid-up member of the #MeToo movement who defends her with vigour.

Two such fanatics, Mary Fogarty & Gina Arnold, launched an attack on the songwriter Bob Dylan, writing “Swift may be replacing Dylan feels a bit like reparations. Dylan’s work influenced a generation of singer/songwriters, as well as those who wished to write about music, rather than make it, but unfortunately, he is responsible for, among other things, a swath of material which relegates women to objects and does worse. The women of his songs, as many have noted, are, as Katrina Forrester (2020), put it, ‘Unappealing. They were clawing, childish, neurotic, and demanding, women who wanted too much or took what he didn’t want to give. The feminist invocation of Dylan inhabited the uncomfortable terrain between critique and homage: could they use his words to transcend the relations of a world that he described so well yet also embodied? When Ellen Willis (2012) later revised her classic 1967 essay on Dylan, she wrote that he exemplified the ‘bohemian contempt for women’.[3]

It is hard to know where to start with this venomous essay. My point is that Dylan had far more insight into the nature of relationships between men and women than Swift will ever have. As David Walsh writes “A perusal of Bob Dylan––Lyrics: 1962-2001, at least its first half a dozen years or so, reveals a lively imagination at work, and sometimes deep feeling. Dylan can be witty, satirical, insightful and, as well, genuinely outraged at American society’s injustices. The lyrics are capable of conveying physical and psychic longing, both for “the beloved” and for recognition by society at large.[4]

As for swift her songs the Marxist writer Eric Schreiber claims they are indistinguishable, vapid and self-centred. Instead of poetry, her lyrics resemble teenage journal verse, including the inevitable pretentiousness.

Making a further point, he writes, “Swift is best understood not as an artist but as a creation of the music industry and a reflection of the present state of cultural decline. She was born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1989. Her father is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch, and her mother worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. When she was growing up, Swift enjoyed the privileges of America’s financial elite. She spent summers at her family’s vacation home in Stone Harbour, New Jersey, where the median price of a house is $2.5 million.[5]

Her latest album, Life of a Showgirl, continues in the same vein as her previous work. As Alex Petridis writes in his Guardian review of Showgirl, “More startling still is the distinct lack of undeniable hooks and nailed-on melodies. The songs are well turned, but in terms of genuinely memorable moments, Showgirl evinces just one killer chorus (Elizabeth Taylor), some impressively unexpected key changes on Wi$h Li$t and the authentically heart-tugging Ruin the Friendship, which finds Swift returning to her home town for the funeral of a high school boy she regrets not dating. There’s a fantastic chord sequence on Actually Romantic, but, alas, 37 years ago, Frank Black wrote a very similar one for Where Is My Mind? by Pixies, a song you can literally sing along to Actually Romantic. The rest floats in one ear and out the other: not unpleasantly, but you might reasonably expect more given the amassed songwriting firepower behind it, and Swift’s claims of “keeping the bar really high”.[6]

Given what has happened in the world recently, you would have at least expected some form of comment to appear in her new album. Swift is an intelligent girl, but has chosen to stay silent. Again, like previous material, Life of a Showgirl deals with her feelings and past relationships. Her perspective has not matured appreciably since her early days.

Schreiber is correct when he writes, “Swift also arises out of the remarkable and ongoing monopolisation and narrowing at the top of the music industry. Record companies, artist management, broadcasting and concert ticketing and promotion, respectively, have come to be dominated by two or three corporate goliaths each. Of the 2 million artists on Spotify, less than 4 per cent account for over 95 per cent of streams. In 1982, the top 1 per cent of artists took in 26 per cent of total concert revenue; by 2017, the number was 60 per cent. In short, Swift’s great success is a symptom of the decay in popular music over the past several decades. It reflects an official culture unwilling or unable to look at itself critically and honestly.”[7]

Swift it would appear to be trapped in a prison largely of her own making. As Shakespeare writes in Hamlet  ‘This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.’As any great artist male or female this should be their starting point. Bob Dylan was a spokesman to a generation for a time and was true to himself. Swift has had plenty of chances to speak out against the injustices and inequality in the world but so far has chosen to stay silent. This will be the legacy of her work and she will not be able to shake this off.

 

Notes

1.   “The Story of Us” (Taylor’s Version): Taylor Swift and Interconnections of Sociological Theory and the Music Industry- Reema Azzo

2.    Are You Ready for It? Re-Evaluating Taylor Swift- Mary Fogarty & Gina Arnold

3.   Left of #MeToo -Heather Berg -Feminist Studies, 2020, Vol. 46, No. 2 (2020), pp. 259-286

4.   Does Bob Dylan deserve to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature? David Walsh

5.   Ceasing to be the voice of a generation-Paul Bond

6.   Celebrity, Music, and Public Persona: A Case Study of Taylor Swift

7.   Elaina K.M. Junes Minnesota State University, Mankato

8.   Campaign Problems: How  Fans React to Taylor Swift’s

9.    Controversial Political Awakening- Simone Driessen

10.Miss Americana: Taylor Swift as a Battleground for Feminist Discourse

11.Juliet Eklund University of Denver

12.Who Needs to Calm Down? Taylor Swift and Rainbow Capitalism Eric Smiale

13.“Blue Swift”: Popular Culture Meets Politics∗ Orestis Troumpounis† Dimitrios Xefteris  November 2024

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[1] www.du.edu/news/du-professor-explores-bookish-brilliance-behind-taylor-swifts-eras

[2] observer.co.uk/contributor/roisin-lanigan

[3] Are You Ready for It? Re-Evaluating Taylor Swift- Mary Fogarty & Gina Arnold

[4] Does Bob Dylan deserve to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature? www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/21/nobe-o21.html

[5] The Tortured Poets Department and the Taylor Swift phenomenon-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/21/wzwk-m21.html

[6] Taylor Swift: The Life of a Showgirl review – dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled-www.theguardian.com/music/2025/oct/03/taylor-swift-the-life-of-a-showgirl-review

[7] The Tortured Poets Department and the Taylor Swift phenomenon-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/21/wzwk-m21.html

A People's History of the Anti Nazi League: 1977-1981 by Geoff Brown Bookmarks Paperback – 25 Sept. 2025

Fascism] affects white and black people alike … The fight against fascism is a common fight for both of us; we approach it from two different directions and perspectives. We are the immediate victims. If they come for us in the morning, they will go for you that night. So be with us that morning, and we will be with you that night.

James Baldwin

The progress of a class toward class consciousness, that is, the building of a revolutionary party which leads the proletariat, is a complex and contradictory process. The class itself is not homogeneous. Its different sections arrive at class consciousness by different paths and at other times. The bourgeoisie participates actively in this process. Within the working class, it creates its own institutions or utilises those already existing to oppose certain strata of workers to others. Within the proletariat, several parties are active at the same time. Therefore, for the greater part of its historical journey, it has remained politically divided. The problem of the united front, which arises during specific periods most sharply, originates therein. The historical interests of the proletariat find their expression in the Communist Party when its policies are correct. The task of the Communist Party consists of winning over the majority of the proletariat, and only thus is the socialist revolution made possible. The Communist Party cannot fulfil its mission except by preserving, entirely and unconditionally, its political and organisational independence apart from all other parties and organisations within and without the working class.

Leon Trotsky-Bureaucratic Ultimatism (1932)

Socialist Workers Party member Geoff Brown is the author of the new book A People’s History of the Anti-Nazi League. The ANL was launched in November 1977 to counteract the growing threat from racists and fascists who were spurred on by sections of the ruling elite who saw the fascists as a battering ram against the increasing radicalisation of the working class.

As the 2010 statement by the Socialist Equality Party stated, “The global crisis plunged Britain into a period of intense class conflict, which brought it closer to revolution than at any time since the 1926 General Strike. As a major financial centre, it was especially vulnerable to the sweeping capital movements that occurred following the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system. The Wilson government was forced into a series of devaluations and major spending cuts. In 1969, it brought forward the White Paper, “In Place of Strife”, to enforce legal sanctions against strikes.

The orthodox Trotskyists in the Socialist Labour League (SLL) warned that the Labour left's refusal to lead a struggle against Wilson was paving the way for the return of a Conservative government and the imposition of even more savage measures against the working class. In 1968, Conservative MP Enoch Powell was sacked from the shadow cabinet after delivering his notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech, which sought to whip up anti-immigrant sentiments. But Powell’s remarks were only the initial expression of a right-wing shift by the Tories, who, by 1970, had adopted a radical, free-market agenda. Based on the monetarist economic policies of Milton Friedman, they advocated an end to the “bailout” of inefficient companies, the curtailing of social provisions, and a legal offensive against wildcat strikes.[1]

It must be said from the outset that the formation of the ANL had nothing to do with Trotskyism or Leon Trotsky’s advocacy of the United Front. According to the SWP, the “ Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky conceived the idea of the united front, which unites groups that are very different, such as reformists and revolutionaries.”

What Trotsky wrote on the United Front is opposed to what the SWP did. He wrote, 'In entering into agreements with other organisations, we naturally obligate ourselves to a certain discipline in action. But this discipline cannot be absolute in character. If the reformists begin to put the brakes on the struggle to the obvious detriment of the movement and act counter to the situation and the moods of the masses, we, as an independent organisation, always reserve the right to lead the struggle to its conclusion, and this without our temporary semi-allies. It is possible to see in this policy a rapprochement with the reformists only from the standpoint of a journalist who believes that he rids himself of reformism by ritualistically criticizing it without ever leaving his editorial office, but who is fearful of clashing with the reformists before the eyes of the working masses and allowing the latter to appraise the Communist and the reformist on the equal plane of the mass struggle. Behind this seemingly revolutionary fear of 'rapprochement' there really lurks a political passivity which seeks to perpetuate an order of things wherein the Communists and reformists each retain their own rigidly demarcated spheres of influence, their own audiences at meetings, their own press, and all this together creates an illusion of serious political struggle....

“On the question of the united front, we see the very same passive and irresolute tendency, but this time masked by verbal irreconcilability. At the very first glance, one is hit between the eyes by the following paradox: the rightist party elements with their centrist and pacifist tendencies, who … come simultaneously to the forefront as the most irreconcilable opponents of the united front. … In contrast, those elements who have … held in the most difficult hours the position of the Third International are today in favour of the tactic of the united front. As a matter of fact, the mask of pseudo-revolutionary intransigence is now being assumed by the partisans of the dilatory and passive tactic”[2]

The SWP said it had “no secret agendas. What we say is what we do. We were running it as a united front. We couldn’t do anything that would undermine the agreement; we had a basic agreement that we were focusing on the NF.” Alongside Stalinists and reformists, the SWP had the backing of other pseudo-left parties that broadly supported the ANL, with the political scoundrel Tariq Ali writing “Hats Off to the SWP”

However, the real purpose of the SWP’s ANL United Front was to develop a pseudo-reformist alliance, aimed at deflecting a revolutionary confrontation between the working class and the British ruling elite. While from the outside the ANL was seen as an adjunct to the SWP, it was, in reality, directed by the top leadership, with SWP’s party leader, Tony Cliff, pulling the strings. Cliff was the ideological founder of the SWP, and his organisation rejected every basic tenet of Trotskyism; however, this did not stop it from using elements of Trotsky’s perspective or analysis to suit its own political objectives. Throughout his life, Cliff sought to associate the SWP with Leon Trotsky as a historical figure. But in reality, it opposed Trotsky’s analysis of the Stalinist bureaucracy and denied the viability of the Fourth International that Trotsky founded in 1938. Trotskyism was “a cul-de-sac”, Cliff wrote, while “Trotskyists suffered from the psychological need to believe in miracles.”[3]

The SWP’s perversion of the United Front tactic was also reflected in its work within the trade unions. As Paul Holborow relates, “one of the most significant considerations regarding how the ANL was established so quickly and widely as a grassroots organisation is what the SWP or the International Socialists had done industrially, particularly since the first miners’ strike in 1972 and before. Crucially, we had 22 rank-and-file papers that were an essential part of our industrial strategy for developing a rank-and-file movement that could fight independently of the trade union bureaucracy.5 This enabled us to very quickly establish sizeable groups of manual and white collar workers in their places of work—firefighters, car workers, civil servants, bus workers, dockers, teachers, engineers, council workers and many others. Perhaps the most impressive example of this was when miners’ leader Arthur Scargill and I spoke at a 200-strong delegate conference, and the following Monday, 60,000 Yorkshire miners went to work with the yellow ANL sticker on their helmets.”[4]

The purpose of the Socialist Workers Party’s rank-and-file committees, then as now, while providing tame “left-wing” criticisms of the labour and trade union bureaucracy, was to work might and main to politically block any independent movement of the working class. One problem for the pseudo-left groups is that they themselves now make up a significant faction of the trade union leadership at national, regional, and branch levels. They have been responsible for numerous betrayals and are now calling on rank-and-file members to rebel against the same bureaucracy to which they belong.

The publication of Brown’s book this year coincides with the SWP’s resurrection of the United Front campaign. According to Holborow, “When John McDonnell said last summer that we need to build an ANL-type movement, I think he was entirely right in spirit, but the context today is so different from what it was 40 years ago. Then, there was a militant rank-and-file movement. Britain was in turmoil, and the opposition to the ruling class was much more extensive and articulate. We are building in a completely different time, in the era of neoliberalism and all the ravages that this has produced for the labour movement. This makes it in many ways more necessary than ever to have an ANL-type organisation, but also more complicated.”[5]  In August, McDonnell had declared, “It’s time for an Anti-Nazi League-type cultural and political campaign to resist” because “we can no longer ignore the rise of far-right politics in our society.”

This is the same McDonnell who, despite being expelled from the Labour Party by its right wing, grovelled before Starmer and begged for re-admittance to this right-wing party of big business. He wrote 11 op-eds in The Guardian, capitulating to Starmer and his right-wing allies. The SWP and its pseudo-left allies have offered him a means to resurrect his “left” reputation.

As Tony Robson and Chris Marsden point out, “There is, however, a significant difference between the 1970s and the present day. Whereas in 1977, the SWP acted with the benediction of the Labour and trade union lefts, today it speaks as the officially designated representative of the Trades Union Congress. The SWP has, over the decades, integrated itself into the highest echelons of the trade union bureaucracy, assuming leading positions in several unions to complement the niche it has established within academia. It speaks today not merely as the bureaucracy’s apologist, but as its officially recognised spokesman on the left.”[6]

 

 

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[1] The mass movement against the Heath government-https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/foundations-uk/32.html

[2] Trotsky, The First Five Years of the Communist International, vol. 2, New York and London, 1953, pp. 91–96, 127–128].

[3] Tony Cliff-Trotskyism after Trotsky-www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1999/trotism/ch03.htm

[4] The Anti Nazi League and its lessons for today-https://isj.org.uk/the-anti-nazi-league/

[5] The Anti Nazi League and its lessons for today-https://isj.org.uk/the-anti-nazi-league/

[6] The significance of the British Socialist Workers Party’s call for a new “left alternative”

  

Diary of a Nobody

Perhaps the most significant development in the life of both my websites has been the exponential rise in hits. For the first time in its seventeen-year history, the original blog, which began in 2008, reached fifty thousand hits in September.

Two interrelated developments account for the rise. Firstly and most significantly, the huge radicalisation taking place has produced an interest in Marxism. Secondly, the move to publicise the websites on Bluesky has not only led to a significant rise in hits but has also attracted a new audience for the websites. In the past, a slight rise in hits would have presented no problem, but this month's increase is substantial, and if it continues, it would mean I need more writers than just myself. So this is an appeal for guest articles. The website needs to expand into other areas beyond my personal interests.

Perhaps the most important book I have read and reviewed over the last month was John Rees’s Fiery Spirits. The book is superbly written and well researched. The book breaks new ground, and already, Rees is working on what will probably be the third book in the trilogy. Like his book, The Leveller Revolution, it needs a second and possibly a third read. It is safe to say that Rees and I do not share the same political outlook, but his work as a historian should be respected, and he is taking the study of the English bourgeois revolution to a new level. I am at a loss to explain, however, why the main bourgeois media outlets virtually boycotted the book. I look forward to his latest book.

 

Meetings

A People’s History of the Anti-Nazi League Date: 06/10/2025 to 06/10/2025 Time: 17:30 to 19:00 Venue: Online- via Zoom -  Institute of Historical Research

 

Roundtable with editors and authors of In Solidarity, Under Suspicion: The British Far Left from 1956 Date 3 Dec 2025, 17:30 to 3 Dec 2025, 19:00 Venue Online- via Zoom. IHR

 

Podcasts

Rodney Hilton interviewed by John Hatcher, part of the Interviews with Historians collection. John Hatcher Series: Interviews with Historians Run 12 May 2025 https://www.history.ac.uk/news-events/videos-podcasts/interviews-historians-rodney-hilton

Interviews with Historians - Christopher Hill-https://www.history.ac.uk/news-events/videos-podcasts/interviews-historians-christopher-hill

Interviews with Historians - Eric Hobsbawm-https://www.history.ac.uk/news-events/videos-podcasts/interviews-historians-eric-hobsbawm

Interviews with Historians - Lawrence Stone-https://www.history.ac.uk/news-events/videos-podcasts/interviews-historians-lawrence-stone

Interviews with Historians - Hugh Trevor-Roper-https://www.history.ac.uk/news-events/videos-podcasts/interviews-historians-hugh-trevor-roper

 

Recent Book Purchases

Taylor Swift Culture Capital and Critique-Routledge

The Haunted Wood Sam Leith

Eviction Jessica Field, Verso

Martin Keown- On the Edge

Dancing through the Fire-Paul Weller

 

 

 

Black Arsenal, co-edited by Clive Chijioke Nwonka and Matthew Harle, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 29 August 2024 (£35).

“When it comes to thinking about politics and race, we cannot always rely on culture as a way to remedy deeper structural questions. Having particular players or particular footballing cultural moments as a point of identification is immense. However, it cannot be a deliberate or a forced thing.”

Clive Chijioke Nwonka

“The theory of race, specially created, it seems, for some pretentious self-educated individual seeking a universal key to all the secrets of life, appears particularly melancholy in the light of the history of ideas. In order to create the religion of pure German blood, Hitler was obliged to borrow at second hand the ideas of racism from a Frenchman, Count Gobineau [4], a diplomat and a literary dilettante. Hitler found the political methodology ready-made in Italy, where Mussolini had borrowed largely from the Marxist theory of the class struggle. Marxism itself is the fruit of the union among German philosophy, French history, and British economics. To investigate retrospectively the genealogy of ideas, even those most reactionary and muddleheaded, is to leave not a trace of racism standing.”

Leon Trotsky: What Is National Socialism? (June 1933)

Black Arsenal was published to coincide with the start of the 2024/25 season. It is co-edited by Clive Chijioke Nwonka, Associate Professor of Film, Culture, and Society at University College London (UCL), and writer Matthew Harle. It is the first of its kind. The book was remarkably 10 years in the making, with a stunning amount of research undertaken.

Asked about the origins of the book, Nwonka said, “Well, it was me thinking a lot about my own background as a person and things that had inspired me. I had started working at the London School of Economics, and I was thinking about the role of race in culture and the ways of thinking associated with it. I was being introspective with myself and realising that John Barnes was important to me in terms of being my first source of inspiration and recognition.

Then that led to the inspiration for Black Arsenal. I was at university, trying to make sense of what this concept meant and what other factors might be involved. The chapter ‘Defining Black Arsenal’ is all about the genesis of that idea. Then you start looking at history and why Black people in London gravitate mostly towards Arsenal.

Whether you are from south London or wherever, and then you realise there is a history that goes beyond Ian Wright, back to the 60s and 70s, to Brendon Batson, Paul Davis. It goes back to what Islington was in the 70s. It goes back to the JVC centre and the community work the club were doing in the 80s. All these factors were already in place before Ian Wright arrived in 1991.”[1]

The book examines the black history of Arsenal football club from a broadly academic standpoint. It also features contributions from former players such as Ian Wright and Paul Davis, as well as contributions from Paul Gilroy, Gail Lewis, and personal responses from Clive Palmer, Ezra Collective, and writer Amy Lawrence.[2].

The timing of the book could not be more prescient. Since its publication in 2024, there has been a significant and distinct growth in racist and fascist forces. Recently, as Chris Marsden writes, “Unite the Kingdom demonstration in August this year was the largest far-right mobilisation in British history. Estimated at between 100,000 and 150,000, participation in London exceeded the numbers usually mobilised by anti-Muslim demagogue Tommy Robinson and extended beyond his usual support base of football hooligans and fascist thugs. This core periphery was boosted by the presence of workers and their families, including from among the most deprived layers, who have swallowed the far-right’s message blaming social distress and the collapse of essential services on migration.[3]

It should be noted from the start that Arsenal have not always had a spotless anti-racism stance. Like most businesses, it has made its fair share of mistakes regarding its stance on racism. During the refurbishment of the old Highbury North Bank in 1992, Nwonka recalls, “I remember as a kid, the first week of the Premier League season, there were all these half-rebuilt stadiums because of the Taylor report [into ground safety after the Hillsborough disaster]. Of course, no one wants to watch a building site on Sky Sports – so the idea came up that you cover it up with these illustrations of your imagined fanbase.” The original North Bank mural was an artist’s impression of a sea of white faces, with red and white scarves, which had to be replaced with a more inclusive mural.

The contributions from Paul Davis and Ian Wright are important, as they were key figures in the development of a more integrated Arsenal team. Davis paved the way for Ian Wright and later generations of players. Ian Wright was a game-changing signing from Crystal Palace. Always the rebel, he appealed to both black and white younger working-class fans. He, in turn, set the stage for Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry, and Bukayo Saka.

Despite being seen as a bit of a rebel, Wright and Arsenal, for that matter, have not been shy in exploiting the commercial possibilities of such a global and multi-racial fan base. Nike and now Adidas have moved quickly in exploiting Arsenal's multicultural teams for profit; Nwonka thinks there is a danger of such exploitation.

“With things like the Arsenal Africa shirt or the Jamaica shirt,” he says, “they have been quite open about the fact that they recognise that there was a consumer base that will find the resonance in something that pays homage to Afro-Caribbean culture. However, I have been attending the Notting Hill Carnival since I was four years old. Moreover, you would always see Arsenal shirts there all the time, rather than those of QPR, Brentford, Fulham, or Chelsea. However, what some brands often do is invest in what they imagine to be Black culture, whereas Black Arsenal, I believe, begins with Black people.”

Football has been a global game since its inception, played worldwide. However, with the advent of satellite television from companies such as Sky, the game has reached a far greater level of global integration.

As David Storey relates, “ Football has always had essential linkages connecting places. Some clubs were formed by, or as a result of, British migrants, and in some instances, this is still reflected in contemporary football. Football has always had essential linkages connecting places. Some clubs were formed by, or as a result of, British migrants, and in some instances, this is still reflected in contemporary club names or colours. Athletic Bilbao's origins and English name are attributed to English migrant workers in the Basque Country (Ball, 2003). A similar explanation accounts for Young Boys in Switzerland, Go Ahead Eagles in the Netherlands, and The Strongest in Bolivia, among others (Goldblatt, 2007). The shirt colours worn by Juventus were reputedly borrowed from Notts County (the world's oldest professional club) shortly after the Italian club's formation (Lanfranchi club names or colours.

Despite this early evidence of international linkages, English football remained somewhat insular for many years (2001). Despite this early evidence of international linkages, English football remained somewhat insular for many years, with restrictions on the importation of foreign players. While the migration of professional footballers is a long-standing phenomenon, and relatively pronounced in countries such as Spain, France, and Italy, the migration of players into or out of Britain was much less apparent (Taylor, 2006). However, recent years have seen substantial numbers of footballers from other parts of the world arriving in the Premier League (and into the lower tiers in the English league system). This internationalisation has occurred alongside the increasing commercialisation of the game.”[4]

While I wholeheartedly recommend this book, it should be of interest not only to Arsenal fans but also to the broader reading public. The historical study of black footballers who played for Arsenal is a legitimate pursuit. However, much of the content of the book is dominated not by a class attitude towards racism, but by too many contributions, including Nwano’s, that see the rise of racism through racially tinted glasses.

Nwonka addressed this, saying, “Of course, I have got a small quantity of criticism from some quarters. One person, when I first posted about the Black Arsenal idea, wrote to me to say: ‘I have been going to Arsenal since the 1970s. I do not see race; I watch football.’ I thought to myself: ‘Well, I am not going to sit here and tell someone whether they should or should not see. However, have you stopped and thought that maybe the reason that you do not see race when you go to Arsenal is that Arsenal has normalised racial difference in a way that some other clubs have not? Moreover, that may be an important thing to recognise?”

Nwonka’s original idea for the book was for it to be dominated by appropriate references to French poststructuralists and the postmodernist and pseudo-revolutionary Frantz Fanon, who was and is a darling of the Pseudo-Left groups. Fanon and Poststructuralists were among other pioneers of the anti-Marxist Critical race theories, which is a “body of academic writing that emerged in the US in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which combines postmodernism and subjective idealist philosophy with historical revisionism and racial sectarianism. Although written in a different form, the book remains dominated by these anti-working-class theories that prioritise race over class

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[1] www.arsenal.com/news/dr-clive-nwonka-talks-new-black-arsenal-book

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Athletic

[3] Britain’s largest far-right protest capitalises on Starmer’s xenophobic, anti-working-class agenda

[4] Football, place and migration: foreign footballers in the FA Premier League

 David Storey- Geography, Summer 2011, Vol. 96, No. 2 (Summer 2011), pp. 86-94

 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd

Postal Workers and the Question of Leadership

Given that the average age for a United Kingdom postal worker is around fifty-five, it is a fair bet that the majority of postal workers have witnessed over four decades of betrayals by the Communication Workers Union(CWU).

A small number of postal workers in their late sixties or seventies, believe it or not, are still working. They would remember the first national postal strike in 1971[1]. I raise this matter because the most pressing question facing postal workers at the moment is the issue of leadership.

Over the last five decades, postal workers have witnessed betrayal after betrayal and have seen their pay and working conditions decimated. It is time to face the facts: the CWU is nothing more than a company union that is doing the current owner, Daniel Kretinsky’s, dirty work. There is no line it will not cross to impose Amazon-style working conditions that will turn Royal Mail into an Amazon-style company with all the implications that entails.[2]

Postal workers have not been taking these attacks by the company and the union lying down. They have met these attacks head-on with every weapon at their disposal. However, it is time to face the facts: the old way of struggle has not worked. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying not to strike, but what is the new perspective that postal workers must fight for?

Leadership is an art. As the Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky said, “There is an ancient, evolutionary-liberal epigram: Every people gets the government it deserves. History, however, shows that the same people may in the course of a comparatively brief epoch get very different governments (Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain, etc.) and that the order of these governments doesn’t at all proceed in the same direction: from despotism to freedom as was imagined by the evolutionist liberals. The secret is this, that a people is comprised of hostile classes, and the classes themselves are comprised of different and in part antagonistic layers which fall under different leadership; furthermore, every people falls under the influence of other peoples who are likewise comprised of classes. Governments do not express the systematically growing “maturity” of a “people”. Still, they are the product of the struggle between different classes and the different layers within the same class, and, finally, the action of external forces – alliances, conflicts, wars and so on. To this should be added that a government, once it has established itself, may endure much longer than the relationship of forces which produced it. It is precisely out of this historical contradiction that revolutions, coup d’etats, counterrevolutions, etc., arise.

The very same dialectic approach is necessary in dealing with the question of the leadership of a class. Imitating the liberals, our sages tacitly accept the axiom that every class gets the leadership it deserves. In reality, leadership is not at all a mere “reflection” of a class or the product of its own unrestrained creativeness. Leadership is shaped in the process of clashes between the different classes or the friction between the various layers within a given class. Having once arisen, the leadership invariably arises above its class and thereby becomes predisposed to the pressure and influence of other classes. The proletariat may “tolerate” for a long time a leadership that has already suffered a complete inner degeneration but has not as yet had the opportunity to express this degeneration amid significant events. A great historic shock is necessary to reveal sharply the contradiction between the leadership and the class. The mightiest historical shocks are wars and revolutions; precisely for this reason, the working class is often caught unawares by war and revolution.[3]

It is pretty clear that postal workers have been caught unawares by the unprecedented nature of the attacks on their pay and conditions. They have, in Trotsky’s words, witnessed a great historical shock. It is time to face reality square on and realise that the CWU is dead and is just waiting to be buried.

Postal workers have tolerated the CWU for a long time because they did not really have an alternative, but now they do. Firstly, they have the World Socialist Website (wsws.org). Its analysis has been second to none in terms of accuracy and perspective. It offers a new way forward for postal workers. The CWU bureaucracy knows it is in a fight to the finish, so much so that it has lashed out at the WSWS on several occasions.[4]

Postal workers need a new organisation. The way forward is the struggle to build the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC). Although it is small at the moment, it has the only socialist perspective to take on both the CWU bureaucracy and Royal Mail. While it must join and build this new organisation, the task facing postal workers is a political one. The philosopher Hegel was fond of saying, "The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the coming of the dusk", and this is true for postal workers today. To be blunt, postal workers do not have much time to build this leadership. Any delay in building the PWRFC will mean that, soon, there will be nothing left to defend.

 

 

 

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_United_Kingdom_postal_workers_strike

[2] UK postal workers discuss fightback against gutting of Royal Mail and Kretinsky takeover-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/29/zmzb-a29.html

[3] The Class, the Party and the Leadership-https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/party.htm

[4] Communication Workers Union's Martin Walsh attacks WSWS over opposition to “USO reform” pilots- www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/01/nxgz-a01.html

Rebels for the Cause: The Alternative History of Arsenal Football Club by Jon Spurling, Mainstream Publishing, Paperback – 30 Sept. 2004

"Football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult."

George Orwell, 1984

 'All that I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football.' –

Albert Camus

'In football, everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.'-

Jean-Paul Sartre

'Five days shalt thou labour, as the Bible says. The seventh day is the Lord thy God's. The sixth day is for football.' –

Anthony Burgess

'And life is itself but a game at football.' –

 Sir Walter Scott

'I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.' –

Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch

'Rugby is a game for barbarians played by gentlemen. Football is a game for gentlemen played by barbarians.' –

Oscar Wilde

Perhaps it is a little harsh to say that, try as he might, Jon Spurling will not reach the literary heights of the authors above; this book, which includes 15 interviews and forty other contributions, is nonetheless a well-written and researched piece of social history that examines the dark side of Arsenal Football Club.

Spurling's examination of the so-called Arsenal rebels, both on and off the pitch. Spans almost 120 years, and it is a million miles away from the sanitised version of the game today. A game, it must be said, that is not so much a competition as a playground for the increasing number of oligarchs that own the game. In the past, the team with the most points won the league; now it is the team that spends the most money. This season belongs to Liverpool, who have just spent half a billion on new players.

Spurling’s book situates Arsenal’s checkered history against a backdrop of volatile social, political, and economic change. While it is hard to pick a favourite piece of Arsenal history, Spurling’s focus on the founding of the club is my favourite. Both owners and players alike belonged to a rogues gallery, each outcompeting the other for skullduggery and violence.

 

Arsenal’s founders were David Danskin and Jack Humble. The so-called '20s soccer Tsar, Sir Henry Norris, was the first to bring free-market economics to Highbury, a hundred years before David Dein.

Despite being a fan for over 50 years, the names from Arsenal’s early years were only vague in my mind., Henry Norris or Wilf Copping were planted in my mind by my father, who first introduced me to the Arsenal family. Like Spurling, I have long known that we were a hated club, and not just by Tottenham fans. Although having been the cause of Tottenham's relegation back in 1928 did raise a laugh. Reading this book, it becomes clear why hatred runs so deep. Millwall fans were not the first to sing, 'No one likes us, we don’t care.'

Another name mentioned by my father was Ted Drake. According to my dad, Drake was one of the most gifted players ever to wear the red and white shirt. On this occasion, it is correct that Spurling calls him a Highbury legend who said of Highbury ‘For all the thirties grandeur of Highbury, it's still only bricks and mortar at the end of the day. Magnificent stands provide the backdrop to a splendid house. But it's the people within – the fans and players – that have made Highbury a marvellous home for the Arsenal. And for me, that is really what Highbury is all about.”

The writer Brian Dawes has a similar arsenal of history to mine, saying, “I've visited and worshipped at the stadium regularly for nearly fifty years now and have invariably regarded it as my second home. I've always felt comfortable there, and it's always been so much more than just a place to watch a game of football. It's that rarest of places, one that you know was meant specifically for you the first time you view the lush turf and admire the symmetry of the classic east and west stands. You may share it with thousands of fellow fans and the generations of Arsenal followers who preceded you, but Highbury is your spiritual home. The history of the place grabs you by the throat in a way that compels you to learn all there is to know about all the great players who've ever graced the hallowed turf. Highbury is an ongoing home shared by players and fans alike, and each cares for the place with their own personal memories.”[1]

My first season supporting Arsenal was the 1970/71 season. Many things attracted me to Arsenal. I mentioned its rich history, but what got me hooked was not only the atmosphere and the smell of fresh hot dogs, but Highbury was a thing of aesthetic beauty, so much so that its Art Deco design is still a listed building.

I watched my first game, coincidentally, near where the Arsenal fan and writer Nick Hornby sat when his dad took him to his first game in the West Upper stand. The film Fever Pitch, starring Colin Firth, shows Hornby's amazed look as he takes in his first game. I had that same feeling. I always thought from that moment on, it seemed that Arsenal had a classy way of doing things and embodied the mantra “ Play up and Play the Game”.

From my standpoint, one of the most interesting chapters of the book is entitled “Cold War”. According to Wikipedia, “In November 1945, with league competition still suspended, Arsenal were one of the teams that played a Dynamo Moscow side touring the UK. With many players still serving abroad in the armed forces, Arsenal were severely depleted and had to use six guest players, including Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortensen, which led Dynamo to declare that they were playing an England XI. The match, at White Hart Lane, kicked off in thick fog and Dynamo won 4–3, after Arsenal had led 3–1 at half-time. Although the score is generally agreed upon, accounts of the match diverge thereafter; even the identity of the goal scorers is disputed. English reports alleged that Dynamo fielded twelve players at one point and tried to pressure the referee into abandoning the match when they were losing; in turn, the Soviets accused Arsenal of persistent foul play and even alleged that Allison had bet money on the result, a claim that was later retracted. The acrimony after the match was such that it inspired George Orwell to write his 1945 essay The Sporting Spirit, in which he opined on the nature of sport, namely that in his view "it is war minus the shooting".

I was already five years into my love affair with Arsenal when, at the tender age of 16, I started devouring the books of George Orwell. But I never knew he was a Gooner. Born in India, Orwell became a fan in the late 1920s. He also watched the great Arsenal side of the 1930s. His The Sporting Spirit is one of the finest pieces of “sports writing” of any generation, and his political evaluation of the game itself is worth a quote.

Orwell writes, “Now that the brief visit of the Dynamo football team has come to an end, it is possible to say publicly what many thinking people were saying privately before the Dynamos ever arrived. That is, that sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will, and that if such a visit as this had any effect at all on Anglo-Soviet relations, it could only be to make them slightly worse than before. Even the newspapers have been unable to conceal the fact that at least two of the four matches played led to much bad feeling. At the Arsenal match, I was told by someone who was there that a British and a Russian player came to blows, and the crowd booed the referee. The Glasgow match, someone else informs me, was simply a free-for-all from the start. And then there was the controversy, typical of our nationalistic age, about the composition of the Arsenal team. Was it really an all-England team, as claimed by the Russians, or merely a league team, as claimed by the British? And did the Dynamos end their tour abruptly to avoid playing an all-England team? As usual, everyone answers these questions according to their political predilections. Not quite everyone, however. I noted with interest, as an instance of the vicious passions that football provokes, that the sporting correspondent of the Russophile News Chronicle took the anti-Russian line and maintained that Arsenal was not an all-England team. No doubt the controversy will continue to echo for years in the footnotes of history books. Meanwhile, the result of the Dynamos’ tour, insofar as it has had any result, will have been to create fresh animosity on both sides.[2]

This is a fine book and well worth a read. While it will appeal to Gooners all over the world, fans outside the Arsenal world will appreciate it just as much.

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Highbury: The Story of Arsenal in N5- www.arsenal-world.co.uk/feat/edz3/book_review_highbury_the_story_of_arsenal_in_n5_281111/index.shtml

[2] The Sporting Spirit-Tribune, 14 December 1945-https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-sporting-spirit/