billy-anania

4341 Articles by:

Billy Anania

Billy Anania is an art critic, editor, and journalist in New York City.

Second City Blues

Two new accounts of growing up and leaving Birmingham provide moving accounts of the snobbery and misunderstanding directed at England’s second city by the country’s social elite.

The Border Business

The grim condition of Home Office’s asylum accommodation is notorious, but less well-known is the fact that its provision is outsourced to private companies – who profit from those fleeing disaster and war.

There are Other Worlds Than This

Jack Latham’s records made under the name Jam City are intensely political – not as protest songs written on acoustic guitars, but in the radical texture and ideas conveyed by the music itself.

The Colour Bar at the Border

For decades, ‘concern’ about immigration to Britain sought to preserve the racial hierarchies of the empire – and imperial notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ continue to affect our political discourse today.

Competitive Policing Is a Terrible Idea

Priti Patel is reportedly drawing up plans for police force league tables. It’s a market-logic method that’s been shown to reproduce inequality elsewhere – and risks making police brutality even worse.

The Revolving Door Spins On

‘Sleaze’ and ‘chumocracy’ have been features of the past year’s politics, but corruption is nothing new – it’s a feature of a system where politicians and corporate lobbyists are often the same people.

After the Bodies Piled Up

The debate over Boris Johnson’s comments is a reminder that Britain’s pandemic disaster wasn’t an act of god, it was a failure of government – as lockdown eases we should remember why so much was lost.

The War over Work

New books by Jon Cruddas and Amelia Horgan exploring work share much common ground, but come to radically different conclusions – exposing a deep generational divide over the future of the workplace.

The Dark Prince Returns

The Labour leadership’s decision to lean on Peter Mandelson in Hartlepool is just the latest sign that it is running out of ideas – and instead turning to discredited establishment hacks to bail it out.

Kwame Nkrumah’s Pan-African Socialism

Kwame Nkrumah, who died on this day in 1972, was a leader in the fight against colonialism. But he knew that independence wasn’t enough – only a unified, socialist Africa could truly free itself from its former masters.