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Just in case you missed them first time around, here were the best-read posts of 2011 at the Centre Left: 5. UCU and the siren call of “my enemy’s enemy” – written after the union’s extraordinary, Kafkaesque decision, on being accused of anti-semitism, to rewrite what anti-semitism means. 4. The New Politics (reprise) – Huhne’s Reagan… Continue reading The best of 2011 – who’s Number One?

…a late entry, the irrepressible CNN talk-show host Piers Morgan, for apparently having forgotten most of his life as editor at the Daily Mirror during yesterday’s Leveson inquiry hearings. He beat off stern competition, however, from News International’s Les Hinton (also forgot about phone-hacking during Leveson) and of course the government’s very own Chris Huhne (forgot about any… Continue reading And the winner of the 2011 “Reagan Defence” Award is…

It’s been an eventful week at my first conference in eight years, if extremely mixed politically (I know it’s not over yet, but do you really think it’s worth staying till Thursday? I’m home already). On Sunday the Refounding Labour party reform package was passed, including some difficult-to-justify gender quotas for the Shadow Cabinet, Leader and Deputy… Continue reading The Centre Left’s conference week highlights

So, arrived in Liverpool for Labour Party conference. Writing this in a somewhat, er, basic hotel in Bank Hall, one of the perhaps slightly less beautiful parts of the city (no, it’s not the area in the photo). Which, for the record, I have booked, and to which I have travelled some distance at my… Continue reading The Centre Left goes to Liverpool

A piece of late news: last Sunday, Tony Lloyd MP led a delegation to meet with Hamas leaders in Gaza. A Labour Party spokesman said yesterday: “Labour supports UK policy not to speak to Hamas. MPs’ visits arranged privately are a matter for them to comment on as individuals.” But Tony Lloyd is not any… Continue reading What the hell were you doing in Gaza, Mr Lloyd?

Following up on my previous post about extremism in the Labour Party and the racist preacher Raed Salah… On Friday 15 July, Harry’s Place ran an article on Richard Burden MP’s without-irony call for, at the same time, banning unpleasant Christian preacher John Hagee, while defending unpleasant Islamist preacher Raed Salah. When I retweeted this… Continue reading A response to Richard Burden MP on racist extremism

Sitting listening to yesterday’s Blair speech at Church House, what was notable was not the robust defence of his government, which has already given rise to a few headlines (although, frankly, it contained very little that has not already been said in A Journey).  No, it was, as is sometimes the case with the polished performer,… Continue reading Blair on Labour’s debate: and the Darwinism of ideas

Now as regular readers will know, I like to debate (I like to argue, some would say. It’s a fair cop). But my strong preference, heaven help me, is to debate on the issues. Yes, I’m afraid so, rather than using certain stock words or phrases in a kind of game of Top Trumps, thinking… Continue reading The Lazy List, part I

Ed Miliband has done the second smart thing in less than a week by explicitly not backing the impending public service strikes on his personal blog yesterday, as we suggested might be a good course of action here last week. Hell, if we keep this up, who knows what could happen. We might get elected.

normblog The weblog of Norman Geras Norman Geras is Professor Emeritus in Politics, University of Manchester, founder signatory of the fine Euston Manifesto, jazz fan, author of the excellent, forensically-argued normblog and general all-round good guy. For the last eight years he has been running series of profiles on bloggers – particularly political bloggers – about… Continue reading The normblog profile