Category: Uncategorized

Bored on a Saturday afternoon last weekend, I indulged in a bit of banter with a few Labour friends on Twitter. The subject of Tower Hamlets mayor, Lutfur Rahman’s possible readmission to the Labour Party came up (you may recall he was forced to leave in 2010 after standing as an independent). In the spirit… Continue reading Twitter, jokes and Lutfur Rahman

On this fine Easter morning, just a wonderful nugget that I saw this morning (thanks to the Times’ excellent @DJack_Journo): Nicolas Maduro, Chávez’ vice-president and, let’s face it, likely successor, is turning out to have succeeded in a very difficult challenge: being more bonkers than his predecessor.Frustrated with their inability to embalm the Great Leader’s… Continue reading Chávez is gone…but still advising God

Sometimes politics and the outside world display a beautiful, if apparently pointless, synchronicity.As if trying to tell us something, David Bowie goes straight to number one in the album chart by revisiting a profound source of inspiration for him – in his own words, “walking the dead” – that of partitioned, Cold War Berlin. A… Continue reading Berlin is still the key

Last night came the sad news that former Foreign Secretary and leadership contender David Miliband MP has, unsurprisingly, finally got sick of playing the ghost at his brother’s feast and opted to move to New York to deploy his considerable talents, where at least the press will not be watching his every move for signs… Continue reading Post-Dave state of mind (ii)

The Telegraph’s Benedict Brogan wrote an interesting piece yesterday about backbench disloyalty in the Conservative Party, where he commented that many were in a “post-Dave state of mind”. Although I think even he would agree that we are a long way from prime ministerial defenestration, it was difficult not to be inspired by the turn… Continue reading Post-Dave state of mind

Society, and not just in Britain, is increasingly dividing up into two parts: the first, those who work in a national context: public sector workers, most lawyers, a lot of media and small businesses. Those for whom “abroad” mostly means a holiday. Their day-to-day is dealing with other Brits, who in turn deal with other… Continue reading Wanted: a 21st century internationalism for Labour

My latest piece for Independent Voices, on how Labour’s highly unpleasant Lord Ahmed finally has got his just desserts, is here.

Today is a quarter-century since Saddam Hussein’s massacre of the Kurds with poison gas. According to Wikipedia: The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people, and injured around 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians. I look forward to an outpouring of sympathy for the Kurdish people, for this atrocity, which was committed by one… Continue reading Halabja, 25 years on: deafening silence from the far left’s usual suspects

“Send in the clowns” ran the Economist’s front page last week, in a biting but wholly apt comment on the disastrous election results in Italy, which looks likely to stop its progress towards vital economic reforms in its tracks. Italy’s very own Laurel and Hardy show tells the Italian public what they want to hear:… Continue reading We are staring a lost European decade in the face. This has consequences for Labour

David Essex, in character as “Che” for “Oh What A Circus” The last few days have been one of those times when anyone who considers themselves part of the “sensible left” might reasonably think that the sense of many of their comrades had taken a short holiday. Following his death (rather a long time following,… Continue reading Oh, what a circus, oh, what a show