It is fair to say that the Labour leadership contest has been a total nightmare for the left of the party. Rebecca Long-Bailey was the one to beat after Corbyn announced after the general election that he would resign at some point in the sort of near future. She was going to have Momentum and […]
Why libertarianism doesn’t work and the progressive theory of history
Some people think I’m a libertarian. That’s because either libertarians think I’m one of them, or many on the left believe this to be my creed, which obviously makes me evil. But no, I’m not a libertarian. I used to describe myself as a classical liberal until that helpful term got hijacked by parts of […]
On reflection, this could be the Liberal Democrats biggest problem
In the immediate wake of the general election in December, I wrote a long piece about what I thought had gone wrong for the Lib Dems in a campaign they entered with massive hopes, only to end up losing net one seat. Last week, I wrote three pieces detailing the only space I feel the […]
Are Labour destined to lose the next general election? There is way for them to win
Two things are remarked upon at the moment as being definite for the Labour Party: that Keir Starmer will be their next leader and they will lose the next general election. Yet for everything I have said in the past about the Tories being in power until 2035, I don’t think the latter needs to […]
Here’s why I think the “Remainers are the ones really responsible for hard Brexit” theory is so wrong
A popular thesis, doing the rounds of SW1, is that Remainers via their intransigence have made a harder Brexit than would have otherwise been coming our way inevitable. I think there are several massive problems with this theory to say the least. For a start, Theresa May’s Brexit, at least what we know of it […]
Why Remainers shouldn’t feel too glum today
Two years ago, I wrote an article for The New European about how I thought that perhaps the country needed a hard Brexit in order to move on from the Brexit wars. That enough people were never going to turn against Brexit unless they experienced the downsides of it first-hand. Between then and the present […]
Some further thoughts on Orange Book liberalism as it pertains to the Lib Dems, based on feedback from you lot
Over this past week, I have written a couple of articles about the direction I believe the Lib Dems need to take if they wish to become electorally relevant again in the near future. To summarise and simplify, I said the party needed to move to the right and become more pro-business in order to […]
Why this is the only political space available to the Lib Dems – and why they won’t take it
Last Friday, I published an article on this site about why Lib Dem hopes of an alliance, formal or otherwise, with the Labour Party was complete fantasy. Near the close of the article, I added the following as an afterthought: “I close with something I’ve said many times before, but worth repeating here: all of […]
In order for the green movement to truly prosper, it needs to do this
In April of last year, George Monbiot went on Frankie Boyle’s show and gave a speech about what we need to do to halt and reverse climate change. There were several prescriptions, some of them sensible, like switching to plant based diets, several of them less sturdy. Amongst the ones that fit into the latter […]
Here are the major arguments against the Tories as stated by their opponents – and why they all suck
In the wake of the election result, there have been many takes on the Tory victory from the centre, the centre-left and the proper left, all of them very, very bad. I thought it was worth taking the time to go through them and talk about why they don’t work the way they are intended. […]