I can imagine senior members of Vote Leave gathered around a conference table several months back. The topic of discussion: Nigel Farage. “If we can keep him contained, we can win,” one of them says. “Impossible,” another retorts. “Not impossible, just extremely difficult.” “This is his life’s obsession. You think he’s going to keep quiet […]
What do Labour moderates do with this poll?
A YouGov poll out today, with the fieldwork having been done just last week, makes extremely sober reading for anyone within Labour or indeed anyone on the centre-left generally who isn’t down with Project Corbyn. Labour members were asked if they thought Corbyn was doing well or badly as leader. The numbers are: WELL 72% […]
The EU referendum: common wisdom accrues in one direction. Is it correct though?
Today, George Osborne, Ed Balls and Vince Cable shared a platform to argue against Britain leaving the EU. It was all three flavours of mainstream political thinking in the this country telling us that Brexit would be a terrible thing. In other words, it’s every mainstream party v UKIP on this one. And UKIP got […]
Boris Johnson becomes the latest British politician to mention Hitler
Just when I was starting to recover from the bout of Hitler tourettes Ken Livingstone suffered a few weeks back, now we have BoJo in on the act. Speaking to the Telegraph, Boris evoked a grand theory of why the EU doesn’t work that involved, you guessed it, the Nazis: “The truth is that the […]
Why are socially conservative autocrats the ones most obsessed with winning the Eurovision Song Contest?
This evening, the Eurovision Song Song Contest finals take place – as some of you are waiting on tenterhooks for, while others amongst you are no doubt dreading as your social media feed gets filled up with endless commentary on an event you could care less than nothing about (to this latter group: apologies in […]
I can see why Vote Leave are upset about Cameron v Farage
During the AV campaign, we used to get upset when a TV network would bring on someone who wasn’t directly involved with our campaign to speak supposedly on our behalf. It’s frustrating – and can be disastrous. The best example was Chris Huhne talking about Goebbels (proving once again that bringing up the Nazis is […]
What the hell is going on in Wales?
For those of you less interested in the goings on in the Welsh Assembly than I am, allow me to tell you the extraordinary thing that happened there yesterday. A vote was taken to decide who would be the First Minister. This should have been relatively straightforward – Labour are short of a majority on […]
The new Leave.EU video is like an advert for why we should Remain in the European Union
Leave.EU, the Arron Banks UKIPpy organisation that didn’t get official campaign status over Vote Leave, demonstrated this week precisely why that was the case. They put forth a campaign ad that was like a Remain campaigner’s wet dream. It featured badly edited scenes of Syrian immigrants in different parts of Europe, all with a voice […]
Corbyn-Khan dynamic will be the new Labour norm for a while
After Labour’s less than apocalyptic (but still poor) local election showings in England, coupled with Sadiq Khan’s victory in London, the coup of Jeremy Corbyn post EU referendum looks less likely than ever. What is most interesting about this is that while Khan becoming mayor has theoretically helped Corbyn, at least in the short term, […]
I have started to worry that Boris will be prime minister no matter what
Another day, another Cameron v Boris Europe spat. Cameron today has set out the “emotional” case for Remain, while Boris is apparently laying out the “liberal” case for Leave. That sentence leaves no further room for satire, so I will leave it there. In arguing so vociferously for something a lot of Tories do not […]