The Nuneaton hustings last night was a predictable disaster. Andy Burnham, the acknowledged front runner in the Labour leadership contest, told the assembled that “the party always comes first”. Liz Kendall was straight in with: “The country comes first”. If Burnham wins, Cameron has a stick to beat him with for the entirety of his […]
Don’t listen to Alex Salmond – Labour abstaining on the purdah vote was excellent opposition politics
“Labour have yet again chosen to abstain on a key vote,” Alex Salmond declared in his usually understated manner. “They need to find a backbone and become an effective opposition in parliament.” It will come as little surprise that I disagree with Salmond: in this case, it’s because he happens to be objectively incorrect. Because […]
If the Lib Dems continue to factionalise, the party is finished forever
Asghar Bukhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Council thinks that Zionist conspirators broke into his house to steal a single shoe of his. Seriously. “ARE ZIONISTS TRYING TO INTIMIDATE ME?” read his rather bonkers Facebook post on the subject. I start my article on growing Lib Dem factionalism with this snippet to demonstrate clearly the […]
The Left’s big mistake was its response to austerity – it’s a problem yet to be solved
Many on the left of British politics still talk about “austerity” as something created by the Coalition government and now being carried on by the Tories with their newfound majority. However, I can assure you that austerity is for real; the government has less money to spend than it used to, or rather, we now […]
Sometimes rejection is the world’s way of saving you from embarrassment
At different points in my life, I have been involved in what one might deem “the creative world”. I have been an actor, a writer, a film/TV director, the bass player in a country and western band, a lounge singer. Some of these came with payslips; several did not. However, when I look back at […]
The latest Tony Blair scandal makes it even harder for the Labour centrists to win
At one of his early Labour conference speeches as leader, Ed Miliband announced to the gathered: “I’m not Tony Blair.” He then was clearly stunned by the rapturous applause which followed. His obvious statement of fact that he was not, indeed, the last leader of the party but one was meant simply to be the […]
Lessons from Budapest – Brexit and all that fun stuff
I spoke at an event in Budapest yesterday, one focused on the various problems facing the EU in regards to making sure that all of the countries within it abide by basic democratic standards. This is a topic that has particular salience in Hungary, a country whose prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been likened to […]
The Daily Mail has a go at Nick Clegg over Lords appointments
“Nick Clegg changes his tune on House of Lords” the headline read. When I first saw it, I was stunned: had Nick really given himself a peerage? Given he had said he wouldn’t, I suppose I could see why the Mail would feel entitled to have a go. But alas, the content of the story […]
Is the £70 million reduction to Scottish spending cuts phase one of the Tory-SNP collaboration this parliament?
For what’s actually a pretty significant story, at least in political terms, it’s got very little airtime thus far. One article in the Telegraph a couple of days ago is all I’ve found of any significance. The Treasury have asked Scotland to find £107 million in savings in 2015/2016, compared to the original £177 million […]
With either Sol Campbell or Zac Goldsmith running, Labour may find it harder to retake London than they banked on
As I and others have noted in the past month, Labour are in a bit of a pickle at present. Stephen Bush at the New Statesman gave a fascinating breakdown of the psephological mountain Labour have to climb in order to win the next general election. And that’s before you take into account the new […]