It’s certainly not my place to tell the Labour Party what they should and shouldn’t be doing, but aren’t they, by their own rhetoric, trying to bring down the government? Isn’t their main goal to end May’s premiership in the hopes of bringing on a general election and then winning that plebiscite? Given communication from […]
World Cup 2018: Thoughts on England v Tunisia
I suddenly remembered why I stopped watching England play football whenever possible about ten minutes before kick off last night. I can say with absolute certainty that I watched every single England senior men’s team football match between around 1998 and the 2010 World Cup. I know because often times, when England were playing say, […]
How Theresa May is employing the “weak kid” dodgeball tactic
I’m certain a lot of you reading this will not have ever played the game known as dodgeball; in fact, I would bet that if you have even heard of the game, it is only through the Ben Stiller/Vince Vaughan comedy motion picture of 2004, or through South Park. The game is thankfully easy to […]
A review of “The Orange Book”, 14 years later
In June of 2004, a bunch of up and coming Liberal Democrats together wrote “The Orange Book”, a publication which had the subtitle “Reclaiming Liberalism”. Within Lib Dem circles, it was highly controversial: most of its ideas and outlook were significantly to the right of your average Lib Dem activist (that not being particularly difficult, […]
Would May’s government really fall if the vote on the deal was lost?
Corbyn and McDonnell have long hoped the twists and turns of Brexit would not just end Theresa May’s premiership, but lead to another general election – one which they presume they’d win. This is now becoming a thing amongst Tory MPs as well. Tom Tugendhat, a rising star – as much as there are rising […]
Fundamentalist Islamism! Fake news! Suicidal pop stars! Consiracy theorists! A Slavoj Zizek wannabe! It’s all here, folks
June, 2018. A kid from the Deep South of the USA, Noah Hastings, is the biggest pop star in the world. One night on stage in New York City, Noah commits suicide by detonating a bomb attached to his chest, killing himself and ninety-one of his fans. The public and the media, both online and […]
No, the Tory rebels cannot be “screwed” by the government: explaining the technicalities behind last night’s vote
Many Remainers were livid with the Tory “rebels” – the Remainer Conservative MPs who had threatened to vote for the Lords’ amendment on a “meaningful” vote on the final Brexit deal – for having in the end voted with the government and defeated the amendment last night. I am not asking any of you who […]
Why Corbyn is now and has always been a Brexiteer – and why that means pro-Europeans on the Left now need to decide
One question that will almost certainly be asked by political historians when they reflect back on the current age is why passionately pro-European leftists fell in behind a socialist Brexiteer like Jeremy Corbyn. For a few years now, being anti-Brexit has been one of the signature beliefs of the Left in Britain – all while […]
Here’s how – precisely, step by step – we might end up with a no deal Brexit from here
For a long time, I have assumed that a soft Brexit was all but assured. This was because 1). it is blatantly clear that May is engineering one and 2). either the ERG bunch don’t feel they have the power to remove her, don’t want to and are thus happy to settle for a soft […]
Here’s where I think most Leavers are at the moment
If you’re a Leaver of the Leninist type, a la Rees-Mogg, the parameters are clear. Everything comes down to next Tuesday: if the “meaningful vote” amendment passes, things look hairy. We’re in for a soft Brexit, almost certainly. At least, for now – they can always point to the fact that another prime minister can […]