On Christmas Eve, 2020, Keir Starmer faced a choice. Vote for the poor Brexit deal Boris Johnson had managed to get at the last moment or refuse to play ball and vote it down. He chose the former. Ever since, Labour have mostly been silent on Brexit, hoping the issue would fade into the distance. […]
Who would win a general election if it was called tomorrow?
What follows isn’t a prediction about what is going to happen in 2024. It’s just trying to gauge where the parties are at present and to that end, attempting to take a stab at what might happen if there was a general election that took place in the next couple of months’ time. Several things […]
Three endings for “Game of Thrones” that would have been way better
While in the midst of a global pandemic, it’s nice to think back to the things we used to get worked up about when society was still a thing. Like “Game of Thrones”, Season Eight. We all loved the show for almost a decade leading up to the final series, having had to wait two […]
Was the coalition government a good idea or a bad idea? For the Lib Dems? For the Tories? For the country?
I got to thinking about the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government this week. It is, in a sense, one of the more maligned governments of my lifetime. Labour people and indeed those on the left more generally paint it as an austerity creating beast; most Tory folk think of it as an unfortunate period that they […]
The five worst British political speeches delivered in the 21st century (so far)
I made myself some ground rules for this. One is that I would only count speeches made by Members of Parliament in parties that had at least two MPs in the House of Commons when the speech was delivered. Otherwise, I’d get lost in the weeds – there are loads of terrible speeches given by […]
Why we should be thankful for how the Trump presidency turned out in the end
Today is the last full day of the Trump presidency. It is easy to take his loss in November for granted, forgetting how likely his re-election seemed at the start of 2020 (and which the thinness of Biden’s wins in crucial states bears out). It is also easy to underestimate how much worse Trump’s presidency, […]
My thoughts on the Priti Patel bullying scandal – why I think the right should be careful with what they are doing here
I don’t think there should be much more to say on the Priti Patel bullying scandal. She broke the ministerial code – again – and therefore should have been sacked. That’s it; I don’t see that there is anything more to talk about on the issue. Yet I am seemingly alone on this one; I’ve […]
Here’s my prediction for the 2020 US presidential election
Today is the day politics nerds – and those who are deeply interested in the political fate of western civilisation – have been both anticipating and dreading for four years. The US presidential election. The chance for Trump to be judged on his presidency. For once, the hyperbole surrounding an election is fully justified – […]
Defending Robert Peston’s “The government is socialist” tweet
Yesterday, Robert Peston tweeted out a thread about how he saw the current Boris Johnson-led government as being socialist. Peston really went for it, describing Johnson as “more Castro than Castro”. As a result, people rushed to belittle his claims. What was interesting to me was that the ones who tried to substantially rebut Peston’s […]
A look back at Glen or Glenda – can the Ed Wood’s “masterpiece” tell us anything about the trans debate in 2020?
“It’s the longest hour on Earth,” is my brother’s capsule review of Ed Wood’s first feature, Glen or Glenda, a 1953 film that is about transgenderism/transvestitism. I have always found this and other critiques of the movie that describe it in such harsh terms unfair; noted American film critic Leonard Maltin once described is as […]