What we can do to help Syrians now
When we are thinking today about Syria there’s only one place to start: the desperate situation of up to 8 million people in urgent need of help. More than a million and a half are refugees in...
View ArticleGMB Union’s move today shows that unions feel sidelined by Labour
The GMB Union’s unexpected decision today to lower their affiliation fees from £1.2m a year to £150,000 is a warning shot that doesn’t bode well for the Labour party. The GMB added this ominous...
View ArticleThe government has partially retreated on the #gaggingbill
In the news cycle, late Friday afternoon is reserved for embarrassing admissions, U-turns and other things you want to say as quietly as possible. That explains the timing of the government’s...
View ArticleA New Rural Manifesto for Labour: we call for your support
by Jack Eddy It is uncontroversial to say that Labour lacks rural appeal. Labour’s voice in the British countryside has been inadequate for decades, but has hit a low-ebb in recent years. Even in the...
View ArticleThe Tories have a bigger problem than just UKIP
Lord Ashcroft’s mega poll of key marginals, released yesterday, has been interpreted as showing three things: 1) Labour are doing very well against the Tories in the Tory-Labour battlegrounds 2) The...
View ArticleThe Lib Dems are planning to stop Labour from power in 2015, but is Miliband...
The political press famously paid little attention to Liberal Democrat conferences before the Coalition in 2010. Even now, as Westminster is watching more closely, there is a lingering feeling in the...
View ArticleIs Sadiq Khan right to say that Labour is now the party of civil liberties?
Writing in the New Statesman, Labour Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan brazenly declares that the Liberal Democrat’s record in Government has left Labour as the party of civil liberties. This has...
View ArticleFive observations from Brighton: how Ed Miliband is changing the debate
Ignore the hysterical press reaction to Ed Miliband’s plan to freeze energy prices in 2015 for now. The Labour leader’s speech at the annual party conference also offered intriguing clues about his...
View ArticleFive ways Ed Miliband and Labour can keep ex-Lib Dem voters in 2015
by Andy May It was a strange feeling watching this week’s Labour conference. Once a political enemy, I could conceivably be voting for the party in 2015. I joined the Liberal Democrats over a decade...
View ArticleCameron added young people to his list of Britain’s scapegoats
by Matt Whittley Operation divide and rule has been in full swing since the Tories came to power in 2010. Working hard but struggling to get by on a low income? Blame your unemployed neighbour, or the...
View ArticleIn defence of @rustyrockets and his politics, on Newsnight
The comedian Russell Brand was on Newsnight last night, and although I was sceptical about watching the interview at first, it turned out to be much more entertaining and insightful than I expected....
View ArticleCameron is playing up his Christianity because of gay marriage, not poverty
At the End Hunger Fast vigil yesterday evening, which marked the end of a 40-day-fast to raise awareness of rising poverty, several people read out Christian prayers. In their prayers they called on...
View ArticleWhy blaming the media or calling them “racist” won’t deal with the UKIP problem
The European/Local Elections are coming up next month and the establishment is in full panic. For the first time in British history there is a chance neither the Conservatives nor Labour come first in...
View ArticleWhat exactly do the likes of Graham Stringer and John Mann MP want?
Political journalists love reporting on infighting: it adds drama and excitement to a beat that is usually about boring policy announcements. This isn’t a criticism – as a blogger I loved reporting on...
View ArticleReality check: Labour is not going to win the next election by a landslide
A bizarre notion has taken hold of some of my fellow Labour commentators. Some of them believe that the Labour party is going to get around 40% at the next election and win by a landslide. They believe...
View ArticleThe Green Party has abandoned its key principle in support of Scotland’s YES...
I’ve not waded that much into the debate on Scotland’s future, partly because I’ve been focusing on ISIS and partly because its not my fight. I support the Union but its up to the people of Scotland to...
View ArticleUKIP hypocrisy in exploiting child abuse for their PR stunts
UKIP have unveiled this poster as a PR stunt for a by-election UKIP stooping so low they're using the sex abuse of children as a PR stunt. Wow (via @dandoj) pic.twitter.com/Z1i9yLi19N — Sunny Hundal...
View ArticleTwo big reasons a Tory-Lib Dem coalition is unlikely after this election
Nick Clegg clearly wants another coalition with the Conservatives. And I’m fairly sure Cameron recognises the necessity of carrying on their tolerable relationship. And a lot of people in Westminster...
View ArticleIs Labour making a big (long term) mistake by rejecting “any” deal with the SNP?
The Labour leadership have finally settled on a clear line on the SNP. Assuming that Cameron cannot cobble together a majority on 8th May and has to resign, that gives Ed Miliband his turn at forming...
View ArticleMemo to Labour: David Cameron did not win this election from the centre ground
Tony Blair writes today: “the route to the summit lies through the centre ground”. We expected this right? Tony Blair is becoming famous for repeating himself all the time. There’s also one glaring...
View ArticleThe mistakes I made and what I learnt from the election
A lot of people made mistakes in predicting outcomes in the 2015 General Election, mostly because the polling was so out of sync with the eventual result. I made predictions based on polling too, and...
View ArticleVideo: My talk at Cambridge Labour Club on mistakes and the future of the party
This week I was kindly invited by the Cambridge Universities Labour Club for a talk on where Labour goes from here. In the initial part I talk about the wrong assumptions I made in the run up to the...
View ArticleHindu charity that broke Charity Commission rules by supporting Tories before...
A few weeks before the General Election in May, I found that the National Council of Hindu Temples – a registered charity – posted a message calling on British Hindus to vote Conservative. It was...
View ArticleCameron’s case for attacking ISIS in Syria is flimsy, but I can see why...
Whether Britain acts against ISIL in Syria isn’t about provoking them or if they pose a threat, but whether our actions will be effective and justified. Whatever we decide, we will get attacked by...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....