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By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk Back in September at Labour Party conference I appeared at a fringe event on the future of Labour blogging organised by Mary Honeyball MEP. Below is my contribution, which focuses on how sites such as this…
By Lisa Nandy MP / @lisanandy There's a definite end of term feel to parliament this week. We don't officially rise until Tuesday but the last late night sitting was this week and people are starting to drift off back to their…
The Paul Richards column This morning, to honour the anniversary a lifetime ago of John Lennon's murder outside the Dakota Building, I put on my vinyl copy of Double Fantasy. For those under 30, vinyl is what records are made from, and…
The Paul Richards column King Canute was famous, not for believing that he could hold back the waves, but for knowing that he couldn't. His watery stunt in the shallows of the English Channel was designed either as a rebuke to sycophantic…
The Paul Richards column The demonstrations yesterday have radicalised a new section of society which no government can ignore with impunity. Not the students and school children: they've been ignored for decades. Their parents, on the…
The Paul Richards column A Tory in Number 10. Riots in the streets. An economic downturn. And now a royal wedding. For anyone over a certain age there's a Groundhog Day feeling about the last few weeks. The analogy breaks down fairly…
By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk * Steve Richards engages in a spot of "what if" on the monarchy. * Why does David Laws ignore the possibility of a Lib/Lab coalition? * Gove's plans are too timid, says John McTernan. * More crisis talks…
By Kerry McCarthy / @KerryMP Another Friday, another filibuster. Another example of parliamentary procedure at its most farcical. On a number of allotted Fridays each year the commons sits to hear Private Members' business, i.e. Bills…
The Paul Richards column George Orwell (1903-50), whose real name, as everyone knows, was Eric Blair, led an extraordinary life, from imperial policeman in Burma to infantryman in the Spanish Civil War, from MI5 informer to assassin…
By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk * Jackie Ashley writes in defence of political insults. * The faultline at the heart of "liberal conservatism". * John Healey's warning over health plans. * Graduate unemployment is on the rise. * Young…
The Paul Richards column When Richard Tawney was a young man, he was given a rifle and sent out to France to kill Germans. Our view of the First World War focuses on the senseless loss of life, rows of gravestones and horror beyond our…
The Paul Richards column Until the day he died of a broken heart in 1915, Keir Hardie carried a silver pocket watch. On it were the teeth-marks of a favourite pit pony who had tried, unsuccessfully, to eat it. The experience of the pits…
