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A week left of campaigning, and Britain’s political race to the bottom is in full flight. Polls all over the shop; but narrowing at the end, as they invariably do. In different ways, the Tory and Labour campaigns are spectacularly failing to enthuse the electorate. The Tories, for whom the election has always been theirs… Continue reading The final straight of two terrible campaigns

Even for these unusual times, we might note that this is a highly unusual election. First, it is a snap election, the first in over four decades. Labour is even more woefully unprepared than it would have been in 2020. Second, it has local elections in the middle of the short campaign, for which there… Continue reading Two rays of hope for Labour in the electoral post-apocalypse

Take no joy in the utter failure of Corbyn as a leader, as the vast majority of political commentators have always predicted. The only crumb of comfort that Labour can really take from yesterday was winning two metro mayor posts and coming within a whisker of a third. But the local election results are truly… Continue reading IMPORTANT: disastrous poll, but the general election will be worse

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the Labour landslide. I blogged this little piece for Labour Uncut on what it was like. The day was sunny, and my little Triumph Herald – referred to somewhat unkindly by my Tory opponent, David Curry, as “that old jalopy” – trundled its way across the Yorkshire Dales, blaring… Continue reading Election 1997 20th anniversary: some thoughts

Thinking about the ugly fate which might genuinely soon befall Europe, should Marine Le Pen win the French presidency – lately made more possible by the recent surge for Jean-Luc Melenchon, raising the spectre of a far-left/far-right runoff from next week’s vote – I set to thinking about what makes the current renaissance of populism/nationalism… Continue reading Nationalism: that meme that preys on every country’s weakness

“Can’t get the stink off/He’s been hanging round for days”, wrote Thom Yorke in 1993. “You do it to yourself, you do/And that’s what really hurts”. Lines that could have been written for Labour’s troubled, Stockholm-syndrome relationship with one man. A man who is still hanging round a party which somehow cannot seem to shake… Continue reading Labour and anti-Semitism: can’t get the stink off

It’s been over a decade since my last trip to the States. I used to go at least once a year or so but…young kids, you don’t do long-haul very often (and the experience of 26 hours to Australia with a one year-old in a cot vomiting, well, I was a bit more sensible after… Continue reading The Centre Left goes to…Dallas

For weeks now, the party’s left has been whispering about a “soft coup”. Ah, the old Soviet tactic, much beloved of today’s Vladimir Putin: confuse things by accusing your opponents of whatever you are up to yourself. Oh, and make them feel under attack, so they close ranks. There is a coup going on, but… Continue reading The “soft coup” might be on, but it surely ain’t from the right

It was a cold February morning, when the Shadow Chancellor finally gave in to his demons and went “full conspiracy theory”. To be fair, he probably didn’t feel too well. Labour had just suffered a “historic” by-election defeat at the hands of the governing party, something unheard of in thirty-five years and with the biggest… Continue reading John McDonnell has finally lost it

Since Jeremy Corybn’s rise to prominence, there has been a seemingly never-ending succession of skeletons pulled out of the closets of senior Corbynites, to the delight of Tory press officers everywhere. There was the relationships of Corbyn himself with Holocaust denier Paul Eisen, and with Hamas terrorists; John McDonnell’s outspoken pro-IRA stance; the support of… Continue reading Ian Lavery should not be Labour’s Elections Coordinator. Or anything coordinator, with his toxic past