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It was a strange Midsummer Night’s Dream weekend. There seemed to be dark shadows of plots in every corner. The “Balls papers” of leaked memos reminded us that no-one plots quite like the Brownites; the ghost of David Miliband’s never-uttered leadership acceptance speech was rather unhelpfully leaked to the press, neatly exhuming the Miliband-fratricide stories. And the Labour body… Continue reading Labour’s faerie weekend

“Seismic shift”, “game-changer”, and a number of other dreadful clichés have been used to describe the SNP’s win last Thursday. It was certainly an important result and, apart from during the final weeks, a rather unexpected one. It has also led to a number of reaction pieces, ranging from the Telegraph’s alarmist “Don’t let the… Continue reading Scottish independence: time for a homage to Catalonia?

Good, and perhaps important observation from John Underwood at Labour Uncut last week that, rather than we, the Lib Dems are now the primary target for the Tories. The Tories can win few seats from Labour, because we’re pretty much down to our strongholds anyway.  But they are now eyeing hungrily their coalition partners after the… Continue reading Bizarre Electoral Love Triangle

I have now – finally – finished “A Journey”. You can love the man or you can hate him, but if you don’t understand where he’s coming from, you can’t really hope to understand Labour politics of the last 20 years. Over the next couple of weeks I shall do an occasional post on things which… Continue reading Observations on “A Journey” I: Economics and Gordon

Further to my open letter to the TUC published here last Thursday, there was a response published on Easter Sunday at LabourList by Jennie Bremner, Chair of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (and Assistant General Secretary, I understand, of Unite: The Union). So as not to subject LabourList readers to “Venezuela overkill”, I have written my response… Continue reading Chávez and the TUC – further correspondence

Cameron does rabble-rousing speech to Tory Party faithful about immigration, pressing all the right buttons. Business as usual in the run-up to the locals. Ah, it must be nearly May, then? Or was it a little more clever than that? And are we, at last, learning to be clever back? Yes and yes. First, I… Continue reading Two cheers for Ed and Yvette on the one-trick pony

I don’t want to decry those who went to Saturday’s “March for the Alternative” demo. After all, they did it with all the best intention in the world, and they had every right to. But, for the historical record: the demo was an undeniable car-crash for the Party, in which almost all the things discussed… Continue reading The aftermath

I have been shamed. I am not worthy. For two reasons: firstly I realise that recently I have been posting quite a lot of Centre Left articles on the blogsites Labour List, Labour Uncut and Left Foot Forward (some of them modestly successful, though I say it myself). But you, dear readers, who have been… Continue reading Dance like no-one is watching

In these uneasy days for Labour, there has surely been a renaissance of the Kinnockite “soft left”, excited by Ed Miliband’s victory. Fair enough, you say. But so far the thinking emanating from this renaissance seems not just woolly, but dangerously flawed. A case in point is the article posted in last week’s Guardian by… Continue reading Soft left or soft thinking? a response to Neal Lawson

Last week was the week when we – finally – dealt with head-on the subject of Labour’s economic legacy. And we seem to have been debating it ever since, because it’s perhaps the most important subject which will define a lot of the next 4 years. It’s complex, as Steve Richards argues and, paradoxically, there… Continue reading The battle for Labour’s past: you are all right