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Perhaps a counter-intuitive observation, but Trump’s nearest bedfellow in the UK, apart from the obvious Farage, is Jeremy Corbyn. Like Trump, Corbyn is a populist “anti-politician”, although his populism only extends to his own membership and a handful of left radicals in the population outside it. Despite being on the left rather than the right, Corbyn agrees with… Continue reading Corbyn, Trump and Churchill

Coming hot on the heels of that of Jamie Reed, the resignation of Tristram Hunt may not be a huge surprise to many. A decent and politically-sensible member of the House, if not the obvious next leader he was sometimes billed as. In the end, it is perhaps inevitably those who least see politics as… Continue reading The by-election boom is a flashing red light for Labour

It seems like a statement of the blindingly obvious but, during the current calm of the Obama fin-de-siècle, and before the storm which the Trump inauguration is likely to kick off, it seems like America has almost forgotten itself. The impact of the outsider’s November victory has temporarily become 2016’s giant elephant in the room.… Continue reading Trump will change world geopolitics for the worse

My new piece for Progress is a review of Can Dündar’s notes from a Turkish prison. Sadly, that’s where you end up as a progressive journalist in Turkey. Not only a great book, but there’s a message for all of us about standing up for independent thought. It’s not a growth industry these days.http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2016/12/14/we-are-arrested/

It was always going to be important to wait until the dust settled around Labour’s second leadership election to see what was going to happen next. Now, settled it has and things are a little clearer, but only a little. What remains still looks like a panorama tremendously unhelpful to Labour moderates. First, we might… Continue reading Different degrees of losing

In these topsy-turvy days of 2016, in the wake of Brexit and Trump, it is easy to believe that anything is possible. And not in a positive way.One: it is quite possible that we will wake up tomorrow to find that a European state has a fascist for a head of state: Norbert Hofer could… Continue reading Two Central European vignettes: fascism and totalitarianism

If there were to be a nadir of democratic politics, in the sense of public apathy towards truthfulness in their politicians, even in the strange world of 2016, we may not yet have reached it.The unprecedented election of a seemingly pathological liar to the post of leader of the Free World is pretty bad. But… Continue reading Labour must fight the cancer of post-truth politics, not sign up to it

As we reel from the shock of a Trump victory, it would be easy now to lose sight of our own problems as a country. But they remain the same as they were last Tuesday. Since June, we have rapidly become a country which most of its neighbours now look at with a mixture of… Continue reading Article 50: we do not have to lay down and roll over

When even the Guardian, which has sustained some fairly alternative views on world geopolitics in recent years – including running a propaganda op-ed by the Russian foreign minister – starts acknowledging that modern-day Russia has slid into a new Cold War with the West, well, it’s time to sit up and take notice. Like a… Continue reading We need to talk about Russia

The question: can we, as Tom Watson put it, “get the band back together”? Kind of depends on the band. While the formation of a government remains a rank impossibility for a Corbyn leadership, there is now no question about his grip on the party. Indeed, with the removal of Jonathan Ashworth from the NEC,… Continue reading Time for the PLP to regroup: once more, with feeling