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An occasional series at the Centre Left, linking to particularly obnoxious pieces that the Guardian sees fit to post on its website, Comment is FreeIn previous editions, we have covered anti-Semitic cartoonists, terrorist leaders and hate preachers. So it was with some abhorrence, but little surprise, that today I read a piece by the Guardian… Continue reading The Guardian reaches a new low (v)

Yes, leadership candidates need to appeal to party before they can become leader and do anything at all. But the lengths to which some will go to tickle the tummy of a party, which has just suffered two disastrous election defeats, continues to beggar belief. Better – for the sake of kindness – to gloss… Continue reading No, no, Yvette

We’re like that in the Labour Party, aren’t we? Oh, he’s a nice bloke, he deserves a shot at this. One of us. Can’t we swing it to get him on the list? Or, worse: we’d better put him on the list, or there’ll be hell to pay. Never mind that the rules of the… Continue reading This is a competition between individuals who aspire to govern a country. It is not a charity event

While we have all been a little preoccupied with the Labour leadership race, the Centre Left has not talked recently about foreign policy. But, a thought from that great historian, Eric Hobsbawm, on the run-up to the Second World War: “However, another thing wove the threads of national politics into a single international web: the… Continue reading Hobsbawm on authoritarian ambitions

When you are on the back foot, play the victim. The underdog. Under attack from the establishment. If they ask awkward questions, do not accept the premise of the question. Thus has the hard left defended itself against any kind of rational criticism based on mere facts, for decades.In a remarkably disingenuous, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger piece at… Continue reading In the battle for post-Miliband Labour, Unite’s leadership fights from a position of weakness, not strength

To all of those readers who are not Labour obsessives, you may not already be aware of the state of the race, so here goes:There are four declared candidates for leader and I think unlikely to be any more at this point: Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Mary Creagh.Burnham is the front-runner at… Continue reading Labour Leadership – the story so far

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein The Parliamentary Labour Party’s second-lowest postwar ebb (its 1983-1987 nadir was the only time it has been smaller) is not a time for us to adopt a “steady as she goes” philosophy. We’ve been there, after 2010.… Continue reading This party has to change

It’s been a mad ten days. Labour has not even had time to take in the scale of its crushing defeat (I will write about that next week), and everything has moved at breakneck speed. Two frontrunners (Chuka Umunna and Dan Jarvis) pull out of the suddenly-convened leadership race, and we are left with two leftish… Continue reading Yesterday may yet turn out to have been the day that everything changed

To take my mind off Labour’s crushing defeat in the general election this week – I will be writing about that shortly – I was reminded perhaps one of the most lasting impacts of the Miliband leadership, and surely his only direct influence on foreign policy as party leader.You will remember the Syria vote of 2013, when our… Continue reading Stopping the rush to war, pt 94

So, that Tony Blair. Bloody rubbish, he was. Good job we turned our back on him. #GE2015 — Rob Marchant (@rob_marchant) May 8, 2015