Archives for September 2016

During the summer, a rumour floated around Westminster that Paul Mason was going to try and become the Labour by-election candidate in Leigh (thus, the next MP for Leigh almost guaranteed) once Andy Burnham steps down (after he becomes the next mayor of Manchester; again, pretty much guaranteed). It hit Guido; Mason denied it. However, […]

As witnessed in Liverpool over the weekend, Labour moderates are floundering in the face of Corbyn’s even bigger win amongst the membership, not ready to split but not sure what the other options really entail. They are trying a few things out, experimenting. One trend we’re seeing a bit of now is trying to re-pitch […]

As I sat in a reception last night, the endless affairs one goes to at any political conference, I thought: so this is how the Left dies; not with a bang but a whimper. Like before last year’s Labour conference in Brighton we heard all about how the party’s divisions were going to be on […]

I arrived in Liverpool late yesterday afternoon. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, but what I found was definitely not it. Instead of open civil war, a strange placidity has set in, like one imagines a city after a nuclear bomb attack. The remnants of a once great society are all that’s left, and […]

“We want politicians who are neither populists like Farage, or “born to rule” types like Cameron…..we want politicians who are more like every day people.” I am paraphrasing above something I once heard in a focus group discussion several years ago. You hear similar things all the time from people when asked about the current […]

At the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton last weekend, I spoke at an event about Lib Dem campaigning. Now, the Lib Dems are an optimistic (some meaner people might use the word delusional) bunch when it comes to the future of their party, so I think I ruffled some feathers with what I had to […]

Margaret Beckett famously described herself as a “moron” in regards to her decision to nominate Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership of the Labour Party. Yet she also can’t bring herself to say anything truly bad about him either. She even once described him in an interview, post-2015 leadership election I hasten to add, as a saint. This is a […]

In an interview in the Guardian this week, Lib Dem leader Tim Farron gave an interesting, counter-intuitive take on Tony Blair: “Blair in three chapters – the final chapter is post 9/11, where breathtaking foolishness after foolishness, hubris and something that diminished Britain in the world, cost the lives of thousands of innocent people and […]

The Left is cracking the Cava about Jeremy Corbyn having finally got the best of a Tory prime minister at Prime Minister’s Questions. Fair enough – it’s been some time in coming, and there is no doubt that Corbyn won the session. But if you stop to think why that is, several things about the […]