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I must admit, I am pleasantly surprised to be writing those words. I didn’t always feel that way. In the 1990s, Peter Tatchell was in the news because of OutRage!, which had a policy of outing gay men still in the closet, with the motivation – or at least this is my understanding – that… Continue reading In praise of Peter Tatchell

My seventh piece for the Independent’s IndyVoices, on last week’s local elections, is here. I’m afraid it makes rather uncomfortable reading.

Ah, and in the excitement of the local elections (well, I don’t get out much), I had missed this gem from our old friend, Ken Livingstone. For face time on TV he is now reduced, like Galloway, to speaking on the none-too-fussy PressTV, mouthpiece of the repressive and undemocratic government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, talking here… Continue reading Boston was all the West’s fault, of course

Recent weeks have not exactly been glory days for Labour. The latest chapter, Monday’s car-crash World At One interview – with Miliband refusing to answer whether Labour would increase borrowing, thirteen times – made for excruciating, if compelling, radio; worse, yesterday’s official admission that Labour will do just that – increase borrowing – has left… Continue reading A dangerous game

Last weekend an Independent exclusive reported that Labour had made an in-principle decision not to stick to Tory spending limits post-2015. It quoted the Fabian General Secretary, Andrew Harrop, who had suggested an alternative strategy, although to be fair he states, in his recent piece here at LabourList, that he believes no decision has been… Continue reading If we are serious about government, we need to learn to play the expectations game better than this

US Army chemical weapons symbol Surprise is surely the last thing we should feel at Foreign Secretary William Hague, reporting on Monday that there was increasing evidence that President Assad was using chemical weapons on his own people. It’s not as if it hasn’t been entirely predictable. For the last 18 months, the UN and… Continue reading Syria: what on earth did we expect?

Yes, I know it’s a kind of sickness to be so horribly fascinated by the machinations of a bunch of pseudo-democrats, but I can’t help myself. I think it’s just the thought that there are a bunch of decent Venezuelans who are quite close to having a real democracy, if they could just grasp it.Firstly,… Continue reading Venezuela, where video evidence magically disappears from YouTube

It is a measure of the sometimes spectacular insularity of British politics that the world can be at the brink of nuclear war, and the Westminster bubble carries on pretty much as if nothing has happened. With the death yesterday of Margaret Thatcher occupying the news pages, it seems highly likely that no-one in Britain… Continue reading North Korea is a timely reminder that the world is still dangerous

“Tramp the dirt down” might have been a fitting phrase for a Liverpudlian musician to use about a prime minister in 1989. It is not for a Member of Parliament a quarter-century laterI grew up in the 1980s. I understand why people despised Margaret Thatcher, because I did too. I was an angry teenager. I… Continue reading Tramping the dirt down: why we should never be like Galloway

The most important news about David Miliband’s departure is, of course, that it is by no means news. Journalists were last week making all kinds of wild claims, that this would somehow upset the delicate balance between Miliband’s core team and the remaining Blairites in the cabinet, as if the latter’s secret leader had suddenly… Continue reading David Miliband and the big beast famine