RED RAG (cover illustration)

Back Issues

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Established 1979
Free! Fortnightly! Fun!

These are the back issues of Red Rag. They'll be posted here every (usually) two weeks on or around the anniversary of their original publication. We're currently reissuing 1983; the latest issue is dated February 6th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on February 20th.

Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, had a noble tradition of misspelling, mixed metaphors, wrong facts, confused political judgements and a print run by now of over 1000. It printed pretty well everything it got sent ("unless the Collective judged it racist, sexist, right wing, or supportive of oppressive religions"). It aimed to provide a decent alternative coverage of local news and issues from a radical non-aligned position; to promote subversive and creative initiatives; to provide a forum for unorthodox views; to allow some sort of co-existence between a huge variety of interests. And it was free.

In this slimmed-down issue (scan / txt): the grim reality of a Nation at War with Terrorism finally strikes when the army sends a brave little robot into the Unemployment Benefit Office to investigate two bottles of milk inside a brown paper bag; Labour Party candidates for the forthcoming fiasco next election day are reluctant to answer questions about policy (but if you wanted to know the answers to specific problems you could buy the book on your way out); a claimant tells the police "if you arrest me at least I will get a meal which is more than the DHSS are allowing me"; and readers aren't taking the Red Rag questionnaire seriously enough.