Spokesman Books

A celebration of the work and ideas of GERRARD WINSTANLEY 7pm, Thursday 19th November 2009, Speakers: Thomas Corns , University of Bangor, co-author of a biography of John Milton, and Ann Hughes , University of Keele, author of “The Causes of the English Civil War” (1998) Venue: Russell Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1 (Tube: Holborn). “Fortunately for posterity, there was among the Diggers a man of rare talent and originality, Gerrard Winstanley, who has left behind him in his voluminous writings a record of the faith and beliefs with which he inspired this movement … Suddenly, in this year [1648], his interest turned to politics and he wrote the most characteristic of his books, The New Law of Righteousness , which is in reality a Communist Manifesto written in the dialect of its day. Throughout the next year, 1649-50, he was the life and pen of the Diggers' adventure. When that failed, after writing Fire in the Bush , a defence of his ideas addressed to the church...

"Set in a Manchester working-class evening centre in the mid-1970s, the date of its writing, Comedians eschews political theory, professional ideologues and historically sourced discourse on political revolution – all the perceived hallmarks of my earlier pieces – in favour of a more or less unmediated address on a range of particular contemporary issues including class, gender, race and society in modern Britain." Trevor Griffiths writing in Theatre Plays (published in two volumes by Spokesman Books, price £15 each) An acclaimed new production of Comedians , directed by Sean Holmes, continues at the Lyric Hammersmith until 14th November 2009. Some reviews can be read via our Trevor Griffiths page. Theatre Plays One includes Comedians , The Wages of Thin , Occupations , Sam Sam , Apricots , Thermidor , The Party , The Cherrry Orchard Theatre Plays Two includes Oi for England , Real Dreams , Piano , The Gulf between Us , Thatcher’s Children , Who Shall Be Happy? , C...

After Lockerbie - The Spokesman 106 Edited by Ken Coates "There has seldom been such unanimity in the British political class as has come about in the last half of August 2009 with the release of the Libyan prisoner, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, on compassionate grounds. This was announced by the Scottish Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, after medical reports forecast that the Libyan was at death’s door, having advanced prostate cancer which probably gave him a maximum life expectancy of three months. Megrahi had been sentenced by three Scottish Judges to life imprisonment, following a highly contentious trial in which the Scottish Courts sat in an American airbase in The Netherlands to hear the case of the Lockerbie bomb. A Pan American passenger jet had been blown up on the 21st December 1988, while flying over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie en route for the United States. The evidence showed that a bomb had been secreted in passenger luggage. It had exploded in mid...