It was Christmas eve, 2012, and Ebenezer Miliband lay in his bed, thinking of how his little hardware shop was faring in the middle of this perniciously cold winter. Business had been difficult, and here was a man generous to a fault. Perhaps too generous, some said. Debt was high everywhere in London that year,… Continue reading A Labour Christmas carol
Category: political strategy
Osborne lays the trap. Enter Labour, not walking but running
The weekend before last, I watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the classic kids’ film of my own childhood, with my five year-old for the first time. When the famous “child catcher” scene came on, and the children were being tempted into the evil Kiddy Catcher’s van with sweets and lollipops, it ended with genuine, heartfelt… Continue reading Osborne lays the trap. Enter Labour, not walking but running
Labour: juggling with Occam’s razor
As any economist will tell you, we live in a world of incomplete information. A change in information can serve as a shock, and change the economic landscape all by itself. But this is also true of politics. Changes in information can also change the political landscape, and Labour has just experienced one of what… Continue reading Labour: juggling with Occam’s razor
The return of the far-left: a turning point for Labour
Politics has its own rhythm. It is governed partly by obvious dates, like general elections, but partly by longer-term movements in the tectonic plates. It is easy to overestimate by-elections – the media almost invariably do – but I suspect that Bradford West might just be one of the few that historians remember. Until Thursday,… Continue reading The return of the far-left: a turning point for Labour
Labour’s Groundhog Year
The New Year. Our thoughts and hopes for the future. A difficult year behind. Another one ahead. Sound at all familiar? In the film 1993 film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a character who realises that he is getting up to the same song playing on his clock-radio, I Got You Babe, every day and… Continue reading Labour’s Groundhog Year
Miliband the seer, Miliband the invulnerable
Last Thursday, Ed MIliband was speaking at the IPPR on the economy, doughtily willing that Labour’s alternative can soon be heard again, in light of Britain’s increasingly dreadful prospects. In spite of the response of many commentators, that here was a battle he couldn’t win, his words indicated that, on the contrary, he genuinely believes… Continue reading Miliband the seer, Miliband the invulnerable
Polling, polling, polling. Raw hide?
Image: CBS (With profuse apologies to the late Frankie Laine, or the Blues Brothers, depending on your generation. Sorry about that.) Just in case anyone is still feeling a bit too upbeat after Mark Ferguson’s piece yesterday at LabourList, a question: is our polling taking a turn for the better, or giving us a good… Continue reading Polling, polling, polling. Raw hide?
To boldly go… Ed’s relationship with enterprise
It’s been an eventful couple of weeks. So, the ship has now set a course and we’ve done the crew changeover. It may be a course that not everyone’s happy with, but let’s face it: they never are, are they? And at least there is a course. The Tory conference wasn’t a failure, but it… Continue reading To boldly go… Ed’s relationship with enterprise
Where the Tories are weak
While we are still in the throes of reforming our Party (although that debate is pretty much over, it seems) and defining our policies, we are in some ways a little hamstrung. However, there still is one thing that we can do well on an everyday basis: be a good opposition and attack the government.… Continue reading Where the Tories are weak
Vision and denial
“The system has failed”, ran the original headline for the speech write-up chosen by the BBC, though they later changed it. But it has not. Britain has problems, yes. But it is not, in Cameron’s words, broken, however politically convenient it might be for either party to use that as a basis for change. And… Continue reading Vision and denial