Author: robert.marchant

While the election is still, like 2017, messy in terms of the multi-party split and further complicated by Brexit, the issues at stake are at least simple. For a start, no-one is remotely pretending that this election is about overall policy of the two parties. No, it is about two things: a. Brexit and b.… Continue reading Labour’s core demographics are dissolving before our eyes

Tom Watson’s resignation last Thursday as Deputy Leader is not a great blow to the hopes of Labour moderates in the sense that they have lost a great figurehead. The loss at this stage is, sadly, merely symbolic. In the end, Watson’s Achilles heel – the perennially poor judgement displayed in his former close friendship… Continue reading Ed Miliband, Lucy Powell…we see you

In one of the maddest developments in an already certifiable world of Labour politics, we have, within the last twenty-four hours, had the following: the party’s leadership threatened to immediately abolish the role of Deputy Leader (i.e. strip Tom Watson of his party office), only to pull back at the last minute from doing so.… Continue reading The last forty-eight hours just showed how Labour can save itself

The unprecedented madness of the past few days at Westminster – even against the fairly mad backdrop of post-2015 British politics in general – has made commentators run out of superlatives. They have rather stopped, agape, no longer able to predict the slightest thing. But, in brief summary: Johnson has effectively lost all control and… Continue reading Representative democracy: once more a thing

The week before last, numerous MPs went to campaign for a racist sympathiser. I am sure most thought they were doing the right thing, dutifully answering the campaign call, as politicians do. Quite possibly some didn’t even know the story, or did not dare pull out at the last minute. Either way, they supported Lisa… Continue reading Peterborough shone a light on the dire state of Labour. The Tories’ beauty contest is the same shade of awful

This piece was written before the local elections, where there was certainly some kind of electoral verdict on Corbyn’s leadership. Whether this will finally lead to action to remove him remains to be seen. While it is usual for the political commentariat to be largely focused on the present – especially with Brexit dominating headlines… Continue reading Labour: the damage done

Recent days have surely seen more political turmoil and uncertainty than has been seen in a generation; perhaps even in the whole postwar period. It is certainly extraordinary that, two weeks out from an enormous political event, no-one can really say with any certainty how things will turn out, or even what the plan of… Continue reading Hanging by a thread

Just to mention that I think this is the most retweeted tweet I have ever had, over a decade of using The Twitter. Reading the letter, from an activist in what was my own borough for many years, you can probably see why. Possibly the most damning commentary of all on Corbyn is this resignation… Continue reading Jeremy Corbyn: an Islington North activist writes

It is a good idea, in politics, always to expect the unexpected.  Conventional wisdom is problematic. Who would have predicted John Major? Or Corbyn? And it is particularly problematic when, as now, there are a large number of expected outcomes, each of them with a small enough probability for commentators to pooh-pooh some or all… Continue reading The Independent Group will kill, or cure, Labour

It has been said during the last week, and not by Labour-watchers accustomed to hyperbole, that this might have been the week when a party’s split became irrevocable. While that may or may not be true, it is difficult to remember a time when the parliamentary party was in such disarray, even in the mad… Continue reading Wavertree CLP’s rotten leadership shines a light on the party’s