Inauguration day, here we are. Today, Donald Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States of America. A lot has been written about Trump breaking from conventional American foreign policy in numerous ways, not least of which in terms of volume having to do with how instead of seeing the European Union as the best guarantor […]
Archives for January 2017
More PMQ awfulness from Corbyn – and what a time to do so
First of all, I can barely watch PMQs any longer, so depressing is it as a spectacle. It feels as if you could be watching the final days of Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the western Roman Empire – far from May and Corbyn making me think that a new dawn for Britain is just […]
This may be the weirdest thing said in the House of Commons – and weirdest move by the Labour Party – ever
Sorry to write about what is essentially the exact same topic two days in a row, but two factors play into me doing this. One, I’m in Italy this week, interviewing people for several projects I have on the go, thus I’m away from Westminster at present and two, the totally bizarre statement given by […]
Here’s what Theresa May’s speech tells us about Brexit
The long awaited speech, laying out Theresa May’s plan for Brexit, has finally reached us. She will describe her twelve negotiating objectives for leaving the EU (which hasn’t been trailed to the press, so we all need to wait and see on that one) at 11:45 this morning. There is enough vagueness in it that single market […]
Philip Hammond’s interesting comments to a German newspaper – and what it hints at for Brexit
The chancellor of the exchequer has been supposedly one of the more single market friendly members of the cabinet, which makes his comments to the German newspaper, Welt am Sonntag, this morning all the more interesting. He said that if the UK floated out of the single market it could abandon social democracy. Or as Phil put […]
The current Unite leadership contest lays all of the problems of the British Left out bare
Besides letting us all have a chuckle at Len McCluskey considering his re-election something of a formality only to find his position far from assured, the campaign around who will be general secretary of Unite the Union tells us pretty much everything one might wish to know about the travails of the modern Left in Britain. Michael Chessum, the […]
More great news for Corbyn: another by-election to face in the north
Man, when it rains it really pours, doesn’t it? Tristram Hunt has now resigned as MP for Stoke Central to take up the post of V&A Museum director. That means, you guessed it, another by-election in which Labour will have to defend a seat in a which Leave won in June by a thumping margin […]
Apparently the Copeland by-election won’t happen until May. Here’s what that tells us
The Copeland by-election, triggered by the resignation of sitting Labour MP Jamie Reed, does not yet have a date. Many have speculated as to when it might be. It now appears the answer is becoming clearer. Andrew Gwynne, the MP who has been handed the task of defending Copeland by Corbyn, has this to say […]
ALDE turning down the Five Star Movement is an epoch defining act of stupidity for European liberalism
For those of you who haven’t followed the story, the Five Star Movement, Beppe Grillo’s insurgent political force that looks to possibly even form the next Italian government if the Italian establishment doesn’t stitch up a voting system to stop them from doing so, decided to leave their grouping in the European Parliament and join […]
Jeremy Corbyn just burned his one last shred of integrity
When Corbyn got elected as Labour leader in September 2015, I thought at the very least we’d get to see what opposition unhinged and unsullied by compromise would look like. I knew I would probably disagree with a lot of Corbyn’s policies, but I did have to admit that watching someone say previously unsayable things from […]