Verdict: Cameron wins Review: Miliband had one of those weeks in which he asked what amounted to the same question six times. And it was territory he’d already covered – the Royal Mail sell-off. Now, whatever you think about the sell-off, whether there were dodgy elements involved in the “sweet sixteen” or not, surely even […]
Archives for April 2014
The 40th Anniversary of Kiss appearing on the Mike Douglas Show
This article is one that contains almost 2,000 words on the admittedly execrable 1970’s hard rock phenomenon from New York known as Kiss, so those who normally tune in for my finely honed snapshots of Westminster should look away now. I apologise in advance for my lack of brevity; I just started writing on the […]
“We thwarted Clegg as much as we could”: the problems of the Coalition laid bare
A former SpAd to Michael Gove in the Department of Education gave some scathing remarks to the Sunday Times, later picked up by the Daily Telegraph, about Nick Clegg yesterday. “He won’t do the hard work to get policy right – all he cares about is his image. He is a revolting character. And I […]
The 2015 Problem
I wrote an article last week about the problems a Lib-Lab coalition might face were it to ever come into being. As I’d hoped, I got some interesting responses. Although I say this explicitly in the article itself, I will reiterate the fact that if such a coalition came into being I would wholeheartedly […]
Tony Blair is completely wrong about Russia
Blair is on one of his very occasional visits to these fair isles, this time round to give a speech at Bloomberg about the threat of radical Islam. In the oration, he said he thinks western governments need to “elevate the issue of religious extremism to the top of the agenda”. I don’t really see […]
Is UKIP a far right party?
I wrote an article yesterday about the Farage-Le Pen spat. I got some interesting comments back on the piece – one person pointed out, validly, that UKIP are in the EFD in the European Parliament and are not amongst the Non-Inscrits as I had said. All right, bad me, but can you blame me really? […]
The Farage-Le Pen spat is a great example of the fundamental weakness of the far right
For a brief moment, it looked like UKIP could be wooed by Marine Le Pen into joining the National Front in a new, explicitly anti-EU far right grouping in the European Parliament. Currently, both UKIP and the National Front sit in the Non-Inscrits “group”. I put that in quotations as it is not a grouping […]
The Geneva Agreement on Ukraine is falling apart already
What is it about Geneva and international discussions that don’t go anywhere? In January of this year, I wrote an article for the New Statesman about the Geneva II talks on the Syrian crisis. That summit didn’t end in an agreement at all, which cannot be said of this week’s roundtable to try and defuse […]
I Don’t Believe Vladimir Putin Really Cares About the Russian People
The reason given by Putin for his stationing of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine is his deep, abiding concern for the Russian people, in whatever nation they live in. At least according to him. This ethos has even been given a name, the very obvious “Putin doctrine”. One of Putin’s spokespeople, Dmitri Peskov, […]
The Real Problems a Lib-Lab Coalition Would Encounter
The next election, everyone who talks about these things often will concede, is a very, very tough one to call. The Conservatives seem to have going for them the fact that economic confidence is growing, and this is usually a decider for incumbent governments. But Labour have been ahead in the polls for more than […]