Word reaches me from several sources that Jeremy Corbyn is indeed going to clear the shadow frontbenches of those who have shown disloyalty thus far, most prominent amongst the casualties being Angela Eagle and Hilary Benn – however, Angela’s sister, Maria, looks to be in the firing line as well. And it could apparently happen […]
Being a traditional Tory seems like hard work these days
It appears that the anti-politically correct brigade have got themselves into a jam. The Home Office has a plan to update marriage certificates so that instead of just having places for the name of the father of the bride and the father of the groom, there will also be a space to put the names […]
I worry about the future of trade unionism: confessions of a liberal
Dave Prentis, the current general secretary of Unison, is being faced with a threat to his leadership by three candidates – all of them well to the left of him politically. Although the coverage of this has been minimal in the national press (The Guardian covered it, that’s about it), it is major news – […]
Is there really no room at the cinema for baby Jesus?
The Daily Telegraph ran a feature this week that is perhaps the worst piece I have ever seen in the newspaper, one entitled “No room at the cinema for baby Jesus“. It’s basically a re-hash of the old “the secularists are trying to ban Christmas” spiel, but this article came across as a sort of […]
Is Europe’s political centre is being eaten by the radical left and nationalist right?
The article you are currently reading was triggered by Paul Mason’s piece in the Guardian yesterday, “Podemos: how Europe’s political centre is being eaten by the radical left and nationalist right” in which he discussed the idea that both the far-right and the far-left are becoming so powerful that continuing to have two parties who […]
The Andrea Jenkyns-Jack Lopresti story highlights how lousy a job being an MP actually is
Yesterday, a story broke regarding two Tory politicians. One of them was Andrea Jenkyns, who some of you may recall as the woman who beat Ed Balls in Morley and Outwood at the general election to provide one of the shock results of the evening. The other is Jack Lopresti, MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke since […]
Politics in 2015: the year behind us, the year in front of us
I’ll start all this by saying I’m quite glad 2015 is almost at an end. In political terms, this was a year to survive as opposed to savour (unless you’re a Tory or a Scottish nationalist). Both of the large centre-left parties in parliamentary terms (actually, to avoid fights let’s rephrase that as the two […]
Should “moderates” just give in and join the Tories?
Toby Young wrote a piece in the Telegraph this past week entitled, “An invitation to Dan Hodges to join the Conservative Party“. It was written in the wake of Dan quitting the Labour Party and writing about this fact in his own Telegraph column. In response, Dan wrote a piece called “Why I won’t join […]
Where are the 100,000 Labour moderates going to come from?
The Telegraph, which admittedly is not the greatest place to gather news on what’s happening inside the Labour Party most of the time, has told us that the plan of the Labour moderates is to sit back until early 2017 and then try and reclaim some territory. This actually does chime with people I know […]
Mr Corbyn goes to Brussels
“I am concerned about the way the European Union is increasingly operating like a free market across Europe” – Jeremy Corbyn, August, 2015 I swear to you, I’m not making that quote up; the current leader of the Labour Party actually said that at a hustings during the contest to be Ed’s successor as Grand Poobah […]