We all remember the famous James Landale interview with Cameron pre-election. Or do we do so correctly? Dave, chilling out in his kitchen, a man of the people, said this about his near future political ambitions: “Terms are like Shredded wheat. Two are wonderful, three might just be too many.” The rumour mill started immediately […]
Archives for August 2015
The Labour leadership contest is down to these two contenders only now, I figure
It must be said that the race towards the Labour Party’s new big cheese being in situ has been anything but predictable. I thought back in May that it would be a limp coronation of Andy Burnham, with Kendall being deemed too right-wing and Yvette too wooden and bereft of ideas to even beat out […]
How Corbynmania demonstrates that young people can be as backwards looking as anybody else
Jeremy Corbyn, should he become prime minister of Great Britain, wants to re-open the coal mines. Before you rightly point this out as yet another beautiful example of socialism and the green movement coming into conflict with one another uncomfortably for those hoping to pass them off as inexplicably linked, let’s look at how Jezza […]
Why Donald Trump makes me feel better about life
As British politics drifts into a weird zone, with the Labour Party moving ever more leftwards, I take great comfort in American politics. Because when I look at Corbyn and his band of moony-eyed followers, I can’t help but feel very right-wing. However, all it takes to feel like some left-wing pinko again is to […]
For once, I agree fully with Lynton Crosby
Lynton Crosby appeared at a speaking engagement in his native land very recently and took aim at political pundits. Fair enough – if I were him, I’d do the same thing. It’s hard not to gloat when a whole contingent of people are shown to be definitively wrong about you (I’m in that category of […]
Burnham’s bid to “scrap” tuition fees smells of extreme desperation
Yesterday, I recall seeing a headline about Andy Burnham pledging to eliminate tuition fees entirely. Bold, I thought, but loony. Burnham must know that’s a fiscal nightmare. Which, as it turns out, he does: he has actually promised to replace the current tuition fees scheme with a “graduate tax”. I laughed out loud – this […]
Wonder why Jeremy Corbyn is the favourite to be next Labour leader? This Jon Cruddas article explains it
Jon Cruddas wrote a great article for Labour List yesterday entitled, “Labour lost because voters believed it was anti-austerity”. The basis for the piece was to share the results of an inquiry into why Labour lost in May that Jon had a major hand in. As you would expect, there was some tough revelations in […]
The real reason Labourites and liberals share such animosity towards each other
I’ve always thought of the split between conservatives and liberals (which I think is the essential divide in all politics, everywhere in the world, regardless of what’s actually on offer) through a simple analogy. Go back to the Palaeolithic era of our development as a species and imagine that there must have been a constant […]
Would a Jeremy Corbyn Labour leadership really be such a disaster?
All but the most left of commentators have declared that if Jeremy Corbyn wins the Labour leadership contest, the effect on that particular party will be deleterious. Some of the stuff written about Corbyn, particularly from a centre-left perspective, has been verging on hysterical. I myself have joined in, remarking on many on occasion just […]
Is the Overton Window on state spending in risk of being permanently centre-right?
A quick explanation on what an Overton Window is: it is the range of all policies that will be acceptable to the public at any given time. So to take an easy example, in the late 18th century, slavery as a viable and legal concept was within the Overton Window – these days, it is […]