Grief is like wandering through a minefield, as my mother puts it: however carefully you tread, a sudden detonation can happen out of nowhere. A song played in a supermarket; an overheard phrase; someone in the distance who your mind cruelly suggests is your loved one for a fleeting moment.

Owen Jones

But cutting the working week would free the individual, giving millions of workers more time to spend as they see fit. Human freedom should be the core aim of modern socialism. The right to work less would be an act of liberation - and a cause the left should embrace.

Owen Jones

The passenger pigeon, the golden toad, the Caspian tiger: they are all gone, and other species hang by a thread. Our actions are not merely driving other species to extinction: we threaten our own survival, too, by destabilising ecosystems and destroying biodiversity.

Owen Jones

In the 1920s prohibition in the US notoriously failed to tackle alcohol use, led to lethal forms of liquor entering the black market, fuelled organised crime and its associated violence, and wasted public money.

Owen Jones

A sneer can often reveal far more about the sneerer than the object of their derision.

Owen Jones

Donald Trump's mini-me, Boris Johnson, is in the ascendant: the Tory crown is his to lose. But his colleagues know he's an incompetent, a man who cares only for himself, who was fired twice - by a newspaper editor and a party leader - over allegations of dishonesty.

Owen Jones

Few would deny the importance of tackling online hatred or child abuse content. The internet, after all, has become a key weapon for those who disseminate and incite hatred and violence against minorities, and for those who pose a horrifying threat to children.

Owen Jones

Socialism is the democratisation of every level of society, or it is nothing. It is based on an understanding that the concentration of wealth and power leaves democracy hollowed out, and that simply trooping to a polling station every few years is an insufficient counterweight to the behemoths of global capital.

Owen Jones

So much of our lives is surrendered to subordinating ourselves to the needs and whims of others, turning human beings into cash cows rather than independent, well-rounded individuals.

Owen Jones

Humans should be the Earth's custodians, not its butchers. Much attention - though not enough - focuses on the existential threat posed by climate change. But humanity's mass destruction of the Earth's wildlife is all too little discussed.

Owen Jones

Yet we have learned from the Scottish independence vote and with Brexit what referendums do to our politics. They foster bitter divisions in ways that parliamentary elections tend not to do.

Owen Jones

Freedom of movement in Europe has been all but abandoned as a cause in British politics. Brexit was far more about freedom of movement than our exact trading relationship with the EU, and the electorate rejected it.

Owen Jones

Opposition to immigration is an emotional argument, and human beings are emotional, not robots powered by data.

Owen Jones

If only Brexit would go away. It sucks the political oxygen away from the issues we should all be discussing: like low wages, insecure jobs and the housing crisis.

Owen Jones

For the well-heeled elites, the 90s and 00s were a non-stop party with no hangover: even after the financial crash, the fortunes of Britain's 1,000 richest families more than doubled.

Owen Jones

Genuine democracy is frequently messy, not stage-managed.

Owen Jones

If you are dim but have rich parents, a life of comfort, affluence and power is almost inevitable - while the bright but poor are systematically robbed of their potential.

Owen Jones

In the 1980s, the trade unions suffered a series of calamitous setbacks. Mass unemployment terrified workers into not risking the wrath of bosses. Repressive anti-union laws stunted the ability of workers to organise and defend their rights.

Owen Jones

We should all expect to be able to die with comfort, dignity and love. Our society does not lack the wealth to realise this aspiration, but the willpower.

Owen Jones

A party committed to defending the economic interests of rich elites could never win by saying so.

Owen Jones

Austerity and economic insecurity have collided with the scapegoating of migrants and refugees, at a time when global instability and warfare have driven millions to flee violence and persecution, a minority of whom have arrived on European shores to be met with hostility.

Owen Jones