Since Brexit happened, a lot of energy that was focused on halting our exit from the European Union has gone into a new project which can be defined as the “progressive alliance”. The idea is that Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens (and in some iterations, the SNP) make a pact for each party […]
Here are the two reasons why Labour lost Hartlepool and a chunk of local England
There are those who will try and spin Labour’s results from last week’s ‘Super Thursday’ elections as not all that bad. ‘Look at all those mayors!’ and ‘It’s early in Keir’s leadership still!’ will abound. But make no mistake – Labour are in the shit. The Hartlepool by-election result on its own was terrible enough, […]
Five British political scandals that ultimately went nowhere
In a week that saw Boris Johnson caught up in multiple political scandals, any one of which would have brought down a political career back in the old days when this stuff still mattered, I am taking the time to remind us all of incidents in British politics that have fizzled out into what is […]
Who would win a general election if it was called tomorrow?
What follows isn’t a prediction about what is going to happen in 2024. It’s just trying to gauge where the parties are at present and to that end, attempting to take a stab at what might happen if there was a general election that took place in the next couple of months’ time. Several things […]
Was the coalition government a good idea or a bad idea? For the Lib Dems? For the Tories? For the country?
I got to thinking about the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government this week. It is, in a sense, one of the more maligned governments of my lifetime. Labour people and indeed those on the left more generally paint it as an austerity creating beast; most Tory folk think of it as an unfortunate period that they […]
The five worst British political speeches delivered in the 21st century (so far)
I made myself some ground rules for this. One is that I would only count speeches made by Members of Parliament in parties that had at least two MPs in the House of Commons when the speech was delivered. Otherwise, I’d get lost in the weeds – there are loads of terrible speeches given by […]
My thoughts on the Priti Patel bullying scandal – why I think the right should be careful with what they are doing here
I don’t think there should be much more to say on the Priti Patel bullying scandal. She broke the ministerial code – again – and therefore should have been sacked. That’s it; I don’t see that there is anything more to talk about on the issue. Yet I am seemingly alone on this one; I’ve […]
Defending Robert Peston’s “The government is socialist” tweet
Yesterday, Robert Peston tweeted out a thread about how he saw the current Boris Johnson-led government as being socialist. Peston really went for it, describing Johnson as “more Castro than Castro”. As a result, people rushed to belittle his claims. What was interesting to me was that the ones who tried to substantially rebut Peston’s […]
The Perugia story: an encapsulation of all that is wrong with anti-Tory politics in the current age
Yesterday, my Twitter timeline was awash with stories about Boris Johnson and a supposed trip to Perugia. The lovely city in Italy’s Umbria region had become the centre of a story that many people who should have known better swore would “bring down Boris”. It came from a story in Italian newspaper La Repubblica about […]
Why the left needs to steal this trick from the right to win again
I recently wrote on here about how, contrary to what appears to be a widespread assumption, I believe the right are starting to win the culture war. A lot of people on the right resist this idea, at least partly because it rubs up against their game plan, which is to win the culture war […]