Category: Uncategorized

There have been plenty of column inches in recent weeks dedicated to why the world should intervene in Syria: for most of us the unspeakable pictures of children with their throats cut from the massacre in Houla is enough. It seems undeniable that the world should do something in the face of genocide or likely… Continue reading We shouldn’t stop at Responsibility To Protect

It is spring, two years into a parliament, and an activist’s mind turns to…elections (well, we are an odd lot). Candidates start to be chosen and campaigns planned. We have a much clearer idea of what kind of opponents we will be up against in 2015. A new leadership finds its feet and gets to… Continue reading Without a revival in the south there will be no new Labour government

As the post-election dust settles, we must hope that the party is, somewhere, currently holding a quiet post-mortem, to take away the lessons for next time. There are many positives we can take away, of course: that the locals went swimmingly and so did the London Assembly. And that we held Glasgow, that vital first… Continue reading The status quo in London is not an option

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two CitiesThere seemed to be eerie echoes of Dickens’ words last weekend in the parallel events in those same cities of London and Paris. It… Continue reading The left’s tale of two cities

Yesterday morning I watched Livingstone’s runner-up speech (you can see the whole five minutes here). Although there were moments when it was difficult not to feel human sympathy with a man confronted with the humiliation of what was an extremely personal defeat, at the same time it seems that his extraordinary lack of self-awareness stayed… Continue reading A last word on Livingstone

The polls have closed. It may be relatively close, or not, but Ken Livingstone will probably lose (and, at this point, whether he wins or loses, the argument is the same). And I feel like I can finally send this rather personal piece that I wrote some time ago. I know it’s a little long,… Continue reading A difficult decision

Delight, for many on the left, met the economic figures last Wednesday. Britain was not in recovery after all, but was the victim of a double-dip recession. Paul Krugman wrote eloquently of Britain’s “death spiral of self-defeating austerity”, and Ed Balls had a very good day. All true, or very likely so, although one cannot… Continue reading The double-dip, if it is one, has not changed the rules of the game

“THOMAS MORE: …And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you–where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and if you cut them down…d’you really think you could stand upright in the… Continue reading This is not nationalisation: it is merely theft

On Friday night, I was amazed – no, I’m afraid sickened is probably the right word – to find the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website had celebrated Thursday’s Holocaust Memorial day with this piece, written by none other than Sheikh Raed Salah. For regular readers, you will know that Raed Salah is a renowned extremist… Continue reading The Guardian reaches a new low

My third piece for the New Statesman, about Diane Abbott and Paul Flynn is here. By the way, the original Centre Left piece about Paul Flynn, in case you missed it, is here.