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By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant The day before yesterday, I had an online discussion with a couple of comrades (Jonathan Todd and Tom Watson, if you must know) on the subject of Michael Gove's proposals for blanket banning mobile phones in…
By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant To the intense surprise of everyone, the UN has finally voted for a no-fly zone over Libya. Russia and China were at least convinced not to veto. For the first time since resolution 1441 on Iraq - let's not…
By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant There's an odd, and slightly twisted argument doing the rounds at the moment. It goes: it's perfectly ok to let genocide happen, yes, even on your doorstep. Let's just restrict the discussion to that. Not…
By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant David Cameron has many failings, but he is patently not a racist. There may just remain a few old Powellites in his party rank and file but largely, whether we like it or not, accusations of latent racism no…
By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant There are - thankfully - some positives we can glean from all of this. There is the fact that Balls can now bring his undoubted talent and expertise to the economic brief. There is also the fact that Johnson…
By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant 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…
By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant Yesterday's main news was Italian President Silvio Berlusconi narrowly surviving a confidence vote in Rome's Chamber of Deputies. Despite numerous reasons why he should be thrown out (not to mention, many…
By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant I wasn't at the Policy Forum on Saturday to see Ed Miliband's keynote speech. A shame, I would have liked to, and I ended up reading it and watching it on video (I'm sad like that). And the speech was…
By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant Last week's newsreels of demonstrations in Madrid against the killing of at least 12 protesters in a Moroccan camp seem to have at last got people's attention. But it's the tip of the iceberg in one of the…
By Rob Marchant / @rob_marchant As we close the decade with Barack Obama licking his wounds after the midterms, it's perhaps a good moment to take a look at the tectonic plates of Western geopolitics. And, I don't want to scare you, but it…
By Rob Marchant Well, we're now starting to see more of how the opposition is going to shape up over the next few years. The jury's still out - but there are some slightly worrying signs. On the positive side, Ed's smart enough to realise…
