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Review: Blue Lights

What differentiates this show from other police dramas is its attempts to navigate the political dynamics of Northern Ireland. It avoids the case-of-the-week format of other cop shows in favour of a longer story centring around a paramilitary drug-gang led by the fictional McIntyre family.
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Why I joined the Socialist Party

Huey Newton once said, "The revolution has always been in the hands of the young." Young people today are leading the charge in movements worldwide, for example the environmental movement, the movement for LGBTQ+ rights, and importantly the fight for socialism. Hear from one of our new members, Lewis, about why he joined the Socialist Party. If you're ready to join the fight against capitalism and work towards a socialist future, get in touch with us today!
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Review: Belfast directed by Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh's biopic, Belfast, released in January 2022 to much applause. But for many Belfast natives, it fell flat. The film opens like an on-screen city break brochure, with all the modern visual icons, before fading to black and white and scenes of a typical Belfast street in 1969. Here we are introduced to a nine year-old Kenneth Branagh, "Buddy", as he naively navigates Belfast at the outbreak of the 30-year conflict which became known as "the Troubles".
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Review: For Those I Love

David Balfe is the mastermind behind the solo project For Those I Love and his self-titled debut in which he showcases his unique take on the themes of love, loss and friendship. Balfe appreciates the power of words and poetry as he paints a picture of the Northside areas of Dublin, specifically Coolock, Kilmore, and Donaghmede. The textured electronic arrangements underpin the intriguing storytelling and spoken word rhymes of For Those I Love.

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Review: It’s a Sin

The brilliant, inspiring, and deeply moving Channel 4 drama series It’s A Sin has touched a chord with many since its release last month. This five part series follows a group of friends and housemates living in London between 1981 and 1991. The joyous and hopeful scenes of young LGBTQ people enjoying their lives in the “Pink Palace” (the name they have given their flat) is gradually overshadowed by the emerging, horrifying HIV/AIDS epidemic. Its tragic impact on their lives is felt keenly throughout, as is the disgusting shaming that went with it, rooted in the naked homophobia fostered by the Thatcher government, whose criminal indifference and inaction helped exacerbate the epidemic. 

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The Battle of Cable Street: Lessons for combatting the far right

84 years ago today, on 4th October 1936, Communists and socialists came together with Jewish and Irish workers in an historic stand to stop Oswald Mosley and several thousand of his fascist Blackshirts from marching through the East End of London. In what became known as The Battle of Cable Street, Mosley and his thugs, with police protection, were blocked by an estimated 300,000 counter-protesters across east London.

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It’s not a conspiracy, it’s capitalism!

It’s not new that people feel that society is being run in interests other than their own. Historically, recognition of this fact – that bosses and the rich dictate what happens in our lives, even in supposedly democratic societies – is why working-class people organised in trade unions and workers parties to fight for their own interests.