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So, a week in which, to the great surprise of practically everyone, last week the two Eds came up with a set of policy announcements – or at least, position statements – to “get their retaliation in first” in advance of the government’s spending review. U-turning on a range of issues which they previously stood… Continue reading It’s not the despair Ed, it’s the hope

As a little footnote to my piece on the Turkish protests, a little nugget I have just discovered (h/t: Harry’s Place). In what seems now like quite a prescient interview earlier this year, King Abdullah of Jordan is quoted as saying the following: ”Erdogan once said that democracy for him is a bus ride,” Abdullah… Continue reading Erdogan’s democracy bus ride

Just a little snippet which may be rather significant: the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour reports that: Steve Hart, Unite political director, is on a new project, and replaced by Jenny Fornby. He tweeted he was told he was too close to Labour.— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) June 10, 2013 This follows the reports a couple of weeks… Continue reading Unite: there be something stirring in the woodshed

The original, modest protest over the redevelopment of Istanbul’s Gezi Park has – largely due to a foolishly heavy-handed police response – mushroomed into a much wider manifestation of discontent. This discontent is not just economic and it certainly seems to have very little to do with the revolutions of the Arab Spring. It is something… Continue reading Young Turks: don’t stop now

No, it wasn’t Tony Blair, although it might as well have been and, given his enthusiasm for guitar axemen, he may just have later subconsciously paraphrased it: If [Gaddafi] had been left in power while the west was willing to see President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt deposed, “the damage to the west’s reputation, credibility and… Continue reading Who said “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”?

For those poor souls who don’t recognise the title of this blog, it is the song-title of Bowie’s rather brilliant comeback single, all about returning to Berlin after 35-odd years Having had a couple of months which have not, frankly, been pretty for Labour, this is the question its leaders must surely be asking themselves in the wake of… Continue reading Where are we now, where are we now?

Just two little vignettes on the tragedy in Woolwich, where an off-duty soldier was murdered with a machete in broad daylight: First, our old friend Ken Livingstone was up to his old tricks. I don’t for a moment suggest that he failed to condemn the attacks – he did – but he, apparently uniquely among… Continue reading Woolwich, Islamism and the West

Last Saturday a senior European politician wrote an article in the British press which made you want to shout at the computer screen. Not such an unusual event, you might think, but this was not a debater’s disagreement as one might have had with the viewpoint of a Tory, a Gaullist or a Christian Democrat.… Continue reading We do not stigmatise your country, Deputy Prime Minister. It is you and your party we find distasteful

I wrote this ten days ago and forgot to cross-post it; however, given that it’s about something that happened thirty years ago, I don’t suppose it matters. For the record, today’s Labour’s poll lead is only six points. Today was the thirtieth anniversary of what was arguably Labour’s postwar nadir: the 1983 election. If George Orwell had, by… Continue reading 1983. Never again.

Ah, Nazir Ahmed. There are two sides being put to your story. On the one hand, there is yours. Its claim is that you have been put upon by an unfeeling Labour party, which will not give you a “fair hearing”. On the other, there is the more obvious, alternative explanation, that you were allegedly… Continue reading Goodbye, Lord Ahmed. You will not be missed