Yesterday was Day One of Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth. The weather was pleasant; always quite key in terms of setting the mood, particularly when a conference is set by the seaside. There is an upbeat feeling in the air here now that Labour has elected Jeremy Corbyn as their leader. But I need to […]
Archives for September 2015
Jeremy Corbyn’s first week: compromise is a huge part of politics, as it turns out
I knew Corbyn’s first week as leader of the opposition would be tricky, but at times I’m not sure Jeremy himself saw it all coming. To go from having to shout to be heard even a little bit on anything to suddenly having your every single word and facial gesture endlessly poured over must be […]
What I most fear about the politics of the age that we live in
I wrote on Wednesday about why it was probably a good idea for Jeremy Corbyn to have sung the national anthem at the Battle of Britain memorial service. I got a lot of grief on social media, of the sort I could have predicted beforehand, about how it was his personal choice, etc. The whole thing […]
Yesterday’s PMQs: was Corbyn good or bad?
We saw the first instalment of Corbyn v Cameron in the Commons yesterday. The right-wing press likened Corbyn’s “consensual” approach, crowd sourcing the questions, to reducing Prime Minister’s Questions to a phone-in radio programme. A lot of the left-wing press engaged in the “oh didn’t he do ever so well” thing so reminiscent of the […]
Should Corbyn have sung “God Save the Queen”?
Yesterday, at the Battle of Britain memorial service, Jeremy Corbyn stood in tight lipped silence through the national anthem. I haven’t bothered to look at the right-wing tabloids yet this morning, but I can pretty much guarantee every one of them will have a picture of Corbyn looking as sullen as possible (they having gone […]
What effect will the Corbyn era have on the Tories?
After recent events, we should start by asking how long said era is going to last. The genesis of the Corbyn project has been poorer than what I and many others had expected. From the numerous comms gaffes of the last 48 hours, most notably involving shadow cabinet appointments, to the by all accounts tense […]
Question for Mr Corbyn: no women in the top four jobs? Really?
The most senior positions in the shadow cabinet have been revealed. And in the top four slots – leader, shadow chancellor, shadow Home Secretary, shadow Foriegn Secretary – it’s all men. I will now explain why this is appalling. Usually, the excuse for why there aren’t more jobs given to females in politics is down […]
The first year of the Corbyn era, predicted
Right, so now that Jeremy has won by the flipping great margin we all thought he would, what does the first year of his reign look like? I’m going to try and stick to things I’m pretty sure will happen as opposed to engaging in wild speculation (as tempting as that may be). Like I’ve […]
How much did Sadiq Khan getting the mayoral nomination have to do with Corbynmania?
Most Labour people I know in Westminster have been sure for weeks now that Sadiq was almost certainly going to get the nod to be the party’s mayoral candidate for 2016 – but few saw the margin of victory coming. A whopping 18-point margin over Tessa Jowell – who at one point, let us recall, […]
The person Blairites should feel most annoyed with is Tony Blair himself
T-minus one day until the Corbyn era is set to officially begin. The Blairite wing of the Labour Party, so convinced after the massacre of May 7th that everyone would see that Miliband had been too left-wing and thus the party would revert back to them, lies in tatters. Along the way, calling someone within […]