Having lost my daughter Helen four years ago, I reflect on the various chapters of her life. I recall when Helen was born and my emotions after I was told she had developmental difficulties. She grew up so quickly, attending what were then called "special schools". My husband Mike and I did not always see eye to eye when it came to Helen, but we did watch her strive to gain her independence. How proud we felt when Helen moved into a flat, where she was able to live her life as she wished w...

There is something monstrous about capital, something alive and creeping about it. It’s been compared to a parasite, a vampire, a zombie-maker; one that transforms human lives into dead labour, and marshals all creative, free-thinking individuality into the long trudge that is work, money-making, aspiration. The philosopher Mark Fisher famously compared capital to the alien in John Carpenter’s The Thing: an ‘infinitely plastic entity capable of metabolising and absorbing anything with whic...