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Jon Cruddas argued that the new authoritarian tendency in the leadership threatens the Liberal tradition within Labour. The authoritarianism is real, but Labour never had a pro Liberal tradition. Blair’s inclination for a Lib-Lab turn from…
Over the bank holiday, an announcer on my local radio station asked in real concern: "Has parliament always been as bad as this, or are we just better aware of how MPs behave?" He was not talking about recent appalling legislation that has…
Keir Starmer is starting to define his political strategy, and his commitment to no alliances with the SNP and the pursuit of a Labour government are positive developments. But the immediate future direction is uncertain, and the need to…
Labour did not have a good set of May 6th elections, though there were positive results, especially in Wales. Fierce discussion of the party’s performance continues. However, there is a history that is underlying the current problems, and…
The first anniversary of Labour's 2019 defeat sparked sharp comment from Labour politicians in northern England. The thrust of the argument was that without a targeted effort on 'traditional' northern voters, Labour cannot become a winning…
Gavin Williamson's statement on the 2021 school exams and the pandemic last week refused to follow the sensible Welsh decision to suspend operations. He thus made a bad situation worse. Kate Green was quite right to say that "today's…
The results of the 2020 leadership elections confirm that Labour is a soft-left party. In recent years, this has been widely overlooked and the party has been depicted in binary terms – as one split between mutually hostile Corbynite and…
The recent revelations about complicity in human rights abuses confirms that the Blair legacy is toxic. Turning a blind eye to American moves in the 'War on Terror' is not confined to any one government, but the sense that the Blair regime…
This week saw the Conservative Party revert to type as the 'nasty party'. Forcing Naz Shah MP to vote in a wheelchair clutching a sick bowl on her lap echoed what the Tories did in 1950-51. Facing a Labour government down to a majority of…
Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech is notorious, but four years earlier the West Midlands had seen the first really racist election campaign in Britain, the Smethwick election of 1964. Smethwick had been a Labour seat since the war…
Today the postponement of a debate on an anti-Brexit petition was announced. The rules are that all e-petitions on parliament.uk reaching 100,000 signatures must be given a Commons debate. No guarantees, but at least we hear the…
Harold Wilson is Labour's most successful leader. This has long since been forgotten, but the House of Lords put him back in the spotlight on March 6th when two politicians who served under him, Bernard Donoughue and Giles Radice, gave…
