I’ve described previously what I think are the five worst films ever made. After I did so, I got tweets and emails asking me things like, “What about ‘The Room’? That’s terrible.” I had to write back saying something along the lines of, “Yes, ‘The Room’ is terrible. But it’s brilliantly, enjoyably terrible. Unlike ‘Revenge […]
Archives for March 2015
Has Westminster lost the political capital necessary to make the changes society requires?
I was on a panel at the RSA Tuesday evening which focused on the future of health policy. Given the line up contained both Polly Toynbee and Andrew Haldenby, I thought the discussion was going to be more adversarial than it turned out to be. Instead, everyone broadly agreed that the NHS needed to reform […]
There’s a perfectly sensible reason to exclude the SNP from the debates
David Cameron said he would only take part in a debate if it was held before the short campaign started. This was clearly a bid for the prime minister not to have to take part in any debates at all, which is why it’s so refreshing that the Daily Telegraph, often referred to in less […]
Labour need to realise a Lib Dem collapse in May equals a Tory majority
Throughout this parliament, we’ve heard a lot about Labour’s 35% strategy. This mostly involves picking off ex-Lib Dems and getting them to vote Labour. I can see why this was appealing to them. Only problem is, the psephology of it doesn’t quite work out. The Lib Dems have 56 seats at present (they had 57 […]
Philip Hammond speech today demonstrates once again that the Tories “small state” rhetoric is just that
My least favourite politician of all time is Ronald Reagan. In fact, most of my political sensibilities to this day are governed by an anti-Reagan feeling. This is because Reagan epitomises for me both the hypocrisy of the Right, and everything else that annoys me about conservatism at the same time. In many ways, it […]
Labour have allowed themselves to get played into a weird corner on the whole SNP coalition question
I awoke to Chris Leslie on the Today programme yesterday morning. The Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury had come on to discuss why he thinks Labour spending plans are superior to Tory ones. However, he didn’t get to chat about this without first facing a barrage of questions regarding whether or not Labour were […]
The conservatism of the Left – and why money has always been what politics is actually about
Armando Ianucci wrote an article in the Guardian this weekend past entitled, “Politics was once about beliefs and society. Now it’s a worship of money”. It contains the following paragraphs: “It used to be that we went into elections being asked some pretty big questions about what sort of country we wanted to live in. […]
How did we end up in a situation in which the SNP are the only political party with cause for real optimism?
After the Scottish referendum had been lost by the nationalists on September 18th of last year, you would never have thought that sitting here in early March of 2015, the SNP would be the only party in Britain that had any right to feel truly good about itself. How did this happen? I should hasten […]
The coming Tory split – will the failure of UKIP halt it or help it?
Imagine the following scenario: as a result of having been empty chaired for the TV debates, at least the first two before realising he has to take part in the final one-on-one with Miliband, Cameron fails to help the Tories become the largest party in a hung parliament. By default, Labour form a government; Miliband […]
Would Labour be on course to win on May 7th if David Miliband had become leader in 2010?
Labour conference, September 2010, Manchester. I was there myself; I remember it felt in a weird sort of way like Labour were still in power, such were the security arrangements, the general tension and build-up. This was mostly down to the leadership election. It was clear that the entire future of the Labour Party was […]