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Once upon a time, there was a left-wing newspaper. Its founder, C.P. Scott, clearly saw it as less of a paper and more of a social mission. My grandfather, a true Socialist all his life, religiously took the Guardian every day, and I would…
The average reaction of most Labourites to last Monday’s news from Corby must surely have been: we never really took to you as an MP, but hey, thank you so much, Louise Mensch. To have pulled out of her marginal seat after only two years in…
One thing I sometimes forget is that people born before, say, 1980, didn’t really grow up, like I did, being aware of the constant background noise of the Cold War. That is, even for people in their early thirties, it’s as distant a memory…
I’ll let you into a guilty secret: I’m a sucker for brass bands. As a Yorkshireman who grew up about thirty miles from Durham, and a Labour activist with half my family from South Wales, I am still stirred by the solidarity thing. I…
The sabre-rattling about cutting donations to Labour Party funds. The attack on those frightening people at Progress who seem hell-bent on doing unspeakable things, like building support in no-hope seats, helping local parties raise funds…
I don’t hate Tories. I’m sorry if this is a terrible admission on the pages of LabourList, but there it is. I think that their values are different from mine; really, I merely want us to win and them to lose. And there are some things which…
High turnout is good. It is an unequivocal Good Thing. In fact, it is perhaps the only social good to which all democrats - at least technically - aspire, because it affirms our faith in our chosen system; a metric for the distance we stand…
"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 Cities There seemed to be eerie echoes of Dickens' words last weekend in the parallel events in…
“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…
Let’s get a couple of things straight first. This is not a post somehow arguing to somehow "break the link" between Labour and its affiliated unions (a thing, by the way, which no sane activist would want – the party would self-evidently…
Well, mostly: there are always exceptions. "No-one can justify the Toulouse attacks", said Stop The War Coalition's Lindsey German, "but..." and, without irony, proceeded to attempt to do precisely that, with the usual litany against…
I have to make a confession. I haven’t really engaged with Occupy London – evicted yesterday from St Paul’s – in the few months since it started out. Perhaps I missed something vitally important about it all. I think I’ve written about them…
