It was a lovely weekend in York. I hadn’t really been there before (and you could argue that, having spent virtually the whole of my time there either in meetings, fringe events or the bar, I still haven’t really been there), so I carried no prejudices. On the downside, I would say that the […]
GRAEME SMITH WAS THE CAPTAIN ENGLAND FANS PINED FOR
So England managed to win the ODI series in the Antigua, 2-1. As an England fan, this pleases me. While the real measure of how far England have come following the crushing Down Under will be the test series this summer against Sri Lanka and then India, it was good for them to get a […]
PMQS ON MARCH 5TH – REVIEW
Verdict: Victory for Cameron, statesmanlike in his approach to the Crimean crisis Review: Yes, the Prime Minister came out on top today – but only because Miliband intentionally let him have this one. The Labour leader chose to ask all of his questions on the situation in Ukraine. While there is something commendable about this […]
THE PROBLEM WITH THE GREENS
Despite my politics not being in the orbit of the Green Party, I was cheered by Caroline Lucas winning the seat of Brighton Pavilion in the 2010 general election. I thought it was a victory for pluralism, having another party represented in the House, and I looked forward to seeing what Lucas’ first move as […]
THE NEW CRIMEAN WAR
The Crimea. I should have seen that coming. Last Tuesday I wrote about what I thought Putin’s next move would be. And yet I failed to foresee the tactic of taking control of the Crimea, which Russia have effectively annexed now. My folly. It’s one of those things that seem so obvious in retrospect. The […]
TODAY’S BLOOMBERG EVENT: ONE YEAR ON FROM CAMERON’S SPEECH
On January 23, 2013, David Cameron gave a speech at the Bloomberg London office on the future of the UK’s place in the European Union. In it, as I’m sure you all remember, he pledged to hold an In/Out referendum in 2017 should the Conservative Party win a majority at the general election in 2015. […]
PMQS ON FEBRUARY 26TH – REVIEW
Verdict: Miliband wins, just, by default Review: Miliband decided to ask all of his questions on this occasion around the topic of climate change, leading with a few about how much the government had spent on flood defences in this parliament. Miliband was clearly trying conflate austerity and the cuts with the recent flood devastation. […]
WHAT’S PUTIN’S NEXT MOVE?
For the time being, the reformers seem to have won in Ukraine. Yanukovych has fled Kiev and the parliament has deposed him in his absence; a warrant has been put out for the ex-president’s arrest. A new presidential election for May 25th has been called. So far, the only response from Russia has been to […]
GEORGE ORWELL REVIEW, PART 2: KEEP THE APIDISTRA FLYING, ROAD TO WIGAN PIER, AND HOMAGE TO CATALONIA
Orwell’s third novel, Keep the Apidistra Flying (1936), goes deeper into the world of poverty than any of Orwell’s previous long works by making explicit the protagonist’s clear minded choice of accepting poverty when the option of a bourgeois lifestyle is open to him. Despite Orwell’s denunciation of the work (like A Clergyman’s Daughter […]
WHAT NEXT AFTER SOCHI?
At the start of the Winter Olympics, I had thought that both Russia and the Ukraine would be seas of calm, all the necessary battles being postponed until Putin felt safe in the knowledge that the world wasn’t looking any longer. On this, how wrong I was. This morning, the police in Kiev have had […]