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 Yesterday i’ll have to admit I was utterly, utterly disconsolate. In truth I can’t remember being that down since England went out on penalties in Euro 2004. I was utterly deflated, and I just couldnt see any prospects of things ever getting better in politics. It was a difficult evening But luckily for me I have managed to bounce back, and this morning I feel much more like more normal effervescent self! And I think what would make me feel better is a quick blog on yesterday. So here are a
Continue reading A few reflections on the results yesterday.
I have today had a piece published on LabourList.org.
You can read it here:-
http://www.labourlist.org/time-for-labour-to-wake-up
 I have heard a few Labour folks tell me that they are considering voting “No” principally because they hope to destabilise the coalition and hopefully bring forward a General Election. The view was espoused here on Labour List by Sonny Leong, and a colleague of mine David Chivers from the CWU also voiced this.
I thought it was an interesting view that was worth a full blog post riposte, I mean who wouldn’t want the Lib Dems to get a kicking and the General Election early? I know the thought of
Continue reading AV Vote and destabilising the coalition.
Compass
I’m a member of the Labour party and proud to be so. I’m also a member of Compass and proud to be so. So what do I think about the decision today by compass to vote to open up voting membership to those who belong to other political parties. Well when I cast my vote I put the little “X” next to the no box so you might think I would be really disappointed.
However I think my response is a little more nuanced than that. Firstly and importantly I
Continue reading Compass and opening up membership
For me there are a few distinct factors in the in the whole Vince-gate debacle. Now I have slept on it and my anti Murdoch vitriol has subsided a bit I now feel in a position to make some considered comments.
Ministerial Conduct.
Vince the man with the Plan
Whatever you may feel about the issue at hand (Murdoch’s takeover of Sky) it is clearly entirely inappropriate for a Minister to be prejudging such an important decision. For Cable (or any minister) to talk in terms of a “war” on a particular
Continue reading Vince Cable, Murdoch and the Coalition
So now the verdict is in, the speculation is over, and we now know in some detail what the ConDem plans are in respect of the financial and economic future of the Country under their stewardship.
And here is what we now know beyond all reasonable doubt, this is a regressive budget, it effects the poor more than the rich, the sick more than the able bodied, the weak more than the strong, women more than men. We are most certainly not “in this together”.
When the Financial Times and the IFS
Continue reading We are not “All in this together”
Having recently blogged about why I think the coalition is most likely going to last the best part of a whole term of Parliament. It is now time for the companion piece about why I am not even sure it would be desirable to bring down the government quickly. On balance, I really want to see the back of the coalition as soon as possible and if they fail quickly, proving my last blog wrong then I would be delighted. But if that doesn’t happen here are a few reasons
Continue reading Some silver linings if the coalition does last.
My recent blog on why I think it is a mistake for the left to be focussing so much on the Liberal Democrats generated some interesting debate, on the blog, on Facebook and on Twitter.
Much of this debate focussed on the need to attack the coalition to try and bring it down as quickly as possible. Now I cant say that this would be anything other than a hot damn good thang! But I feel the need to write a couple of quick blogs about firstly how likely I think
Continue reading 5 reasons why the Coalition will last.
Providing the Con-Dem coalition doesn’t volcanically explode in only a few months due to falling outs and fundamental incompatibility then there is every chance that for good or for bad the coalition will re-shape, and re-mould British politics and it could end up having a profound effect on our party structure. Particularly if voting reform happens.
I am massively in favour of voting reform, I think changing “the rules of the game” will have a massive impact on how the game is played. And a proper pluralism in our Party system,
Continue reading Some idle speculation about the future for Political Parties.
Let’s be honest, Labour losing the election and the Tories getting the keys to number 10 is not, and cannot be considered a good thing. Hard times will come for the country, and the trade union movement, and working people in general. But despite this I think there are some reasons to be cautiously optimistic that this may not be quite as bad as we had feared.
1. The Tories didn’t win.
This election was there for them, the Labour party had been in power for 13 years was becoming deeply unpopular.
Continue reading Five reasons to be optimistic despite the Con-Dem Government.
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