Jim Moody

Jim Moody has been a Marxist/activist since 1963, first in the Young Communist League and the former CPGB, and more recently in the Labour Party, where he has been a CLP secretary. He became local organiser of the Free Angela Davis campaign, Anti-Apartheid, and several peace groups. Jim championed Turkish solidarity at a national level for several years after the 1980 military coup and was subsequently active in solidarity work in the 1984-5 Miners' Great Strike. During the 1980s he developed his criticisms of official communism. Later, he was a parliamentary lobbyist in the successful campaign for human embryo research.

Jim has had articles, pamphlets, and photographs published by the Morning Star, campaigning organisations, The Leninist, Socialist Worker, and Solidarity. He has written often for the Weekly Worker.

Latest articles by Jim Moody

Celebrating a mass murderer

Christopher Nolan (screenplay/director) Oppenheimer Universal Pictures, general release

Hanging on the old barbed wire

Jim Moody reviews All quiet on the western front, directed by Edward Berger (general release, 2022)

Trauma, terror, war and peace

Jim Moody reviews Causeway (directed by Lila Neugebauer, distributor: Apple TV) and Butterfly vision (directed by Maksym Nakonechnyi, distributor: MUBI)

Background to the Capitalocene

It is capitalism which lies at the heart of the climate crisis. Jim Moody explores possible technical solutions to what is, he argues, a social question

Loss of biodiversity continues

A global socialist solution is becoming ever more urgent declares Jim Moody

Unrecyclable threat

Jim Moody reviews Deia Schlosberg’s The story of plastic

Triumph of the butcher of Gujarat

There is a real danger of a wave of reaction following the general election, warns Jim Moody

CPGB aggregate: Left strategy and election tactics

Jim Moody reports on discussions at the April 27 aggregate of CPGB members

Film festival: Documented truths

Jim Moody reports from Londons global documentary festival and gives a smattering of reviews

Film review: Saying a final goodbye

Jim Moody reviews, Dominga Sotomayor (director) 'Thursday till Sunday', general release

Film review: Priced into dying

Jim Moody reviews: Dylan Mohan Gray (director) 'Fire in the blood' (general release)

Argo review: How to distract the masses

Jim Moody reviews: Ben Affleck (director) 'Argo', 2012, general release

Film reviews: Artistic branding iron

Jim Moody reviews: Kjell Sundvall (director) The hunters (1996); False trail (2011)

Police: Hundred-million facelift disaster

As expected, voters wanted nothing to do with last weeks PCC elections, writes Jim Moody

Love, mud and misery in Yorkshire

Jim Moody reviews Andrea Arnold's (director) 'Wuthering Heights' 2011, general release

Political naives and coffee cobblers

Jim Moody concludes his review of this year's London Film Festival

Jailbirds, lovers and Chinese bureaucrats

Jim Moody looks at some of the films on offer at this year's London Film Festival

Suffocating lack of democracy

Delegate Jim Moody gives his impressions of the Liverpool Labour Party conference

Not in capital's interest

Knowing the price of every commodity without knowing the worth of life's essentials is the essence of capitalism, writes Jim Moody

Joke at your peril

Jim Moody asks if the courts have undergone a humour bypass operation

Rehabilitation, not punishment

Communists are vehemently opposed to any prisoner being disenfranchised, writes Jim Moody

Celluloid standouts

Jim Moody summarises the highlights of the London Film Festival

Union Carbide gets away with murder

Jim Moody looks at the worst recorded industrial accident and US double standards

Silence of the left

Should socialists demand tighter gun control? Jim Moody calls for a different approach

Jafar Panahi released

Solidarity works, says Jim Moody

Left results: full breakdown

Leave aside their opportunist politics - candidates standing for left-of-Labour organisations managed to get results that barely register statistically. Collated by Jim Moody

Accountable to their party

All three mainstream parties promise voters the power to recall their MPs. Jim Moody looks at the details

Whoring for business

Jim Moody finds yawning democratic gaps, including in Tusc policies

Sex, murder and DNA tests

Jim Moody asks who controls the social controllers

From SWP to Cameron's Tories

Jim Moody asks if rank and file SWP members will challenge their leadership on its electoral follies

I did it for my community

Tower Hamlets councillor Ahmed Hussain has defected from Respect-SWP to the Conservatives, making them the official opposition on the council. He spoke to Jim Moody

Not privileged nor persecuted

Jim Moody examines the impact of Rowan Williams's words in a Britain that is far from secular, at least in terms of its constitution

Lies and more lies

Misleaders of the SWP continue to try to deceive its members, writes Jim Moody

Bush rushes to bail out system

Jim Moody highlights some of the problems brewing for the world capitalist economy

Demands to win youth

Discussing an essential component of our programme, CPGB comrades recently teased out some of the questions around the approach to youth. Jim Moody reports

Reject compulsory education to 18

Jim Moody argues for full adult rights at 16, including the right to leave full-time education

Into the abyss as Bhutto mantle passes to son

Jim Moody assesses the crisis in Pakistan after Benazir Bhutto's assassination

Behind the class turmoil

Gillian Gibbons, jailed for letting her small charges call the class teddy bear 'Mohammed', was freed after being pardoned by Sudan's president. Jim Moody looks at the issues

Fresh start for Campaign for a Marxist Party

In a rebuff to sectarians and halfway house supporters, the recall conference of the Campaign for a Marxist Party put it on a much sounder basis last Saturday. The tiny, unrepresentative Democratic Socialist Alliance faction that had dominated the committee for over a year, doing little or nothing, was replaced. Jim Moody reports

Maintaining the pretence

Posing left, pretending to be a victim, but talking only to itself, the SWP's rump of Respect could not raise the tone of its rally-cum-conference beyond the banal. Not only has the SWP lost around 500 members, writes Jim Moody, but its leadership has learnt nothing from the Respect debacle

Thoughtcrime 2007

Should an islamist fantastist like Samina Malik be imprisoned for writing 'terrorist poetry'? Jim Moody thinks not

Musharraf's gamble

State of emergency in Pakistan: the left needs flexible tactics, says Jim Moody

From must-see to snore-fest

The 51st annual London Film Festival opens this week with a plethora of films from around the world. Jim Moody reviews a selection from the 270 feature films and shorts that will be screened up to the end of this month

Spin on this, Brown

Gordon Brown should not have the right to dedice when the electorate get to vote. Jim Moody calls for annual parliaments

No imperialist intervention

George Bush and Gordon Brown have been shedding crocodile tears over Burma. But should we demand that they intervene to sort things out? Jim Moody argues that the masses themselves are the solution

Not in front of the children

In private, behind the backs of the voting public and the working class, the SWP is said to have been circulating an 'information pack', which supposedly exposes the truth about George Galloway. Jim Moody demands politics

Between a Rock and hard place

The only thing certain in the current turmoil in the global financial system is more uncertainty, says Jim Moody

Triggers and real causes

The reluctancy of the big five banks in the United Kingdom to lend money to each other shows how fragile the whole system of global finance capital really is, says Jim Moody

The turn of the screws

Jim Moody comments on last week's strike of the Prison Officers' Association and asks: Are prison officers state agents or workers in uniform?

Maintaining disorder

Support Iraq oil workers: end the occupation, says Jim Moody

What's a worker's wage?

Section 3.5 of the CPGB's Draft programme, 'Trade unions', was the latest to be discussed at the London Communist Forum held on July 29. London comrades are continuing their study of 'Immediate demands' as part of the process of redrafting. Peter Manson reports

Who's going to deliver?

While support for Royal Mail strikes remains solid, the leadership of the Communication Workers Union is at a loss over how to combat the highly political onslaught by a government-backed management. Jim Moody writes

Debt crisis looms

Last week a minor tremor shook the world of investments. Shares on the world's stock exchanges started to wobble and many fell markedly, causing some alarm in the financial sector. Jim Moody comments

Conservative Lite

Only 18 months in the job and Cameron's position as Conservative Party leader is being questioned. Jim Moody comments

Corruption and irrationality

Jim Moody comments on the trial of Conrad Black, which highlights the enigma of 'capital without capitalists'

Giving excuses leads to active collaboration

Jim Moody on a new Iranian TV channel which panders to the Iranian state

More pro-capitalist than ever

Jim Moody comments on Gordon Brown's 'ministry of all the talents'

Back on the agenda

The process of imposing a European Union constitution has resumed, writes Jim Moody

More poverty, more missiles

Ostentatious and pompous as ever, the 33rd G8 summit took place from June 6 to June 8 at the Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm on the Baltic. Jim Moody reports

Hands off our pensions

Now that the stock market has seen a mild recovery, some larger companies are seeking a 'holiday' from their pension fund contributions. Jim Moody comments

The Windsor boy

Evidently the chief of the general staff feels that prince Harry's life is worth so much more than the life of every other soldier that he cannot be allowed to risk it in the hell-hole that the US and UK forces have made of Iraq. Jim Moody comments

Labour left in crisis

Jack Conrad and Jim Moody comment on John McDonnell's failure to get onto the ballot paper for the Labour leadership election

Nationalism sinks left

Last week's Holyrood election results were a disaster for what passes for the left in Scotland. Both the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity failed dramatically. Jim Moody reports

Post workers under attack

At the end of last week, Royal Mail announced that it would accelerate the privatisation of crown post offices by transferring 85 of them to the tender mercies of WH Smith. Initially, 70 are to due to go this year. Jim Moody reports

Dance of death

The US and its UK junior partner have proved unable to rebuild Iraq into a 'normal' society. But what happens now that the US-UK is staring defeat in the face? Will it mean peace? A massive airborne strike against Iran is becoming more and more likely, warns Jim Moody

More bad climate news

Jim Moody on the irrationality of carbon offsetting and carbon credits

My enemy's enemy

While the establishment celebrates the 25th anniversary of the British victory in the Falklands war, Jim Moody looks back at the role of the left

McDonnell and lesser evilism

None of the large, Labour-affiliated unions have come on board the campaign to elect John McDonnell leader of the Labour Party, and even some of his Socialist Campaign Group comrades are not backing him. Jim Moody looks at the reasons for their reticence

Step up pressure on union lefts to get John McDonnell on the ballot

If John McDonnell's name were to appear on the ballot paper to decide the Labour Party's new leader, that would bring with it the possibility of revitalising the entire left. However, thanks in large part to the cowardice of the left union bureaucrats, not enough Labour MPs have come under pressure to nominate him, says Jim Moody

Reid whips up xenophobia

In response to home secretary's John Reid xenophobic incitement directed at those from outside Britain, Jim Moody argues for open borders

ISG split over Respect

In January, two leading members of the International Socialist Group, Alan Thornett and John Lister, left the officers' group that heads the Respect national council. Others in and around the ISG-dominated paper/front Socialist Resistance have quit Respect altogether. Jim Moody reports

Thieves at large

Jim Moody analyses Royal Mail's decision to exclude new staff from schemes that ensure a retirement payout based on a percentage of a member's final salary

Socialism or catastrophe

There is no solution to global warming under capitalism, says Jim Moody in response to the UN report on the issue

Father knew Lloyd George

With another senior Labour figure arrested over cash for honours and a cover-up alleged, the criminal investigation is drawing Blair into its net. But what lessons can we draw about democracy, accountability and the system of capital itself? Jim Moody examines the issues

Some more equal than others

There is no religious 'right to discriminate', says Jim Moody

No to SWP Berufsverbot

To defeat the BNP, we must fight the system - and not call for ballet dancers to lose their jobs, says Jim Moody

Prosecution warning to muslims

At the end of last week, a protester against the publication of cartoons mocking Mohammed and islam (the 'Danish cartoons') was found guilty of soliciting murder and incitement to racial hatred at a demonstration held in February last year. He faces a lengthy prison term. Jim Moody reports

Workers' militia and burning necessity

Is workers' defence a question for the future or should communists champion the right to bear arms today? Jim Moody looks at the issues

Multiculturalism: facing both ways

Tony Blair's December 8 speech on multiculturalism shows that his government has no coherent programme to deal with the fact that the majority of British muslims oppose his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and are in general deeply alienated. Jim Moody reports