Jonathan Jones, the Guardian’s art critic, dipped his toe into politics this past week with an article entitled, “The Joey Essex and Nick Clegg ‘selfie’ portrays a political system in crisis” Now I like Jonathan’s articles on the art world and it feels slightly mean to have a go at his foray into political writing, […]
I’ve begun to think that Nigel Farage doesn’t actually want to win Thanet South anymore
The Guardian did a piece on Nigel Farage a few weeks back. It was the sort of typical, “on the campaign trail with politician x” article you get round this sort of period just before a general election. There was one quote from Farage that has stuck with me since I first read it. When […]
The leaders’ debate: please, let’s never do this menage a sept ever again
Last night’s leaders’ debate. I don’t want to say I was breathless with anticipation in the run up, but I was looking forward to the whole thing. But by the half way point of last night’s proceedings, I really had to push myself to keep watching. Not because it was a depressing indictment of modern […]
The big problem with Labour’s zero hours contract policy: it could make things even worse
“I couldn’t live on a zero hours contract,” Ed Miliband told the crowd and indeed the nation during the non-debate Paxo debate. So why then has he come up with a policy that will offer at least 80% of those currently on zero hours contracts what amounts to no help at all, and actually very […]
Is it just me or has the Tories’ election campaign been pretty bad so far?
Monday evening, Grant Shapps was interviewed by Evan Davis on Newsnight. Davis pointed out that the Tories’ claim that a Labour government would cost every working household £3,028 was incorrect – the TV journalist explained that the £3k figure was actually a five year projection, not per year as insinuated. Also, that the £15 billion […]
Finally, an aspect of Labour’s “35% strategy” that makes sense (reflections on Miliband’s Bloomberg speech)
For most of this parliament, Labour have been pursuing what they refer to behind the scenes as the “35% strategy”. The logic of it is that Labour only needs that percentage of the vote or thereabouts to win a majority. The theory is faulty in many respects, not least of which is that it doesn’t […]
The Tories need to stop blaming the Lib Dems for not being ahead in the polls
This weekend, there was a Telegraph View article entitled “We will rue the day Clegg ratted on his deal”. It postulates a couple of different theories. One is that had Clegg not vetoed the change in boundaries back in 2012, the Tories would be on course for victory. The other, which is far stranger, is […]
Channel 4’s “Coalition” – a review
I recall when I first heard about this programme being commissioned. In fact, I wrote an article on this very site about it. Having now watched it, my view on that hasn’t really been significantly altered – it was a bad idea. This was reflected in the quality of the final piece, which wasn’t very […]
The Paxman TV “debate” (or whatever we’re calling it): Miliband, the victor
Last night we had the fill in for what was originally going to be a head to head between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. Cameron didn’t want that to happen, stared down the broadcasters, and won. We saw from the proceedings on Channel 4 that began at 9 PM Thursday evening […]
If Labour did a deal with the SNP instead of the Lib Dems post-May, it would be the stupidest thing the party has ever done
So, here’s the scene on May 8th: Labour has 295, 300-odd seats; the SNP have done as well as predicted in Scotland, taking north of 40 seats; the Lib Dems have defied the worst predictions and held 35-odd seats. Labour are in a bit of bind at this point. There are two clear roads ahead. […]