Month: September 2013

The political commentariat is confused about Miliband’s speech, not to mention the conference itself. Opinions seem to range from triumph to disaster, although the “disaster” ones seem to be mostly of the Daily Mail’s “red menace in our society” variety. And that’s not surprising, as both speech and conference were good in parts. But that’s… Continue reading Curate’s egg conference, but the real one’s in six months’ time

Where it all started I wrote this piece last weekend, before Tuesday’s party conference speech, explaining why Ed Miliband both really needs to make party reform work and why it could actually help his leadership ratings to deliver on it. I’ll post what I thought of the speech later. The next few days will be… Continue reading Leadership and party: how Ed can use one to revitalise the other

An occasional Centre Left series which tends to happen whenever I get the chance to go anywhere. I don’t get out much, y’see. It’s been a while, Brighton. As my grandparents’ home for the first twenty years or so of my life, it’s a bit like coming back to see an old friend, who you… Continue reading The Centre Left goes to…Brighton!

My ninth piece for the Independent, on the exclusive polling for the Uncut pamphlet we are publishing on Monday in Brighton is here, with the full tables in the Labour Uncut version here. The story made the Indy’s news pages and I even got a namecheck in the newspaper, I think. Gosh. Bottom line: there’s a lot of scaremongering… Continue reading Primaries don’t break the bank and a majority of Labour supporters would take part

Yesterday Ed Miliband made the first of two rather important speeches (the other due in two weeks at party conference) about the reform of his party’s relationship with its affiliated unions, an initiative on whose success his leadership now clearly depends.There are three – in my view – incorrect points of view which have surfaced… Continue reading Miliband at the TUC, a story few seem to be reading correctly

Rather chuffed to be able to announce that my teaser piece on the forthcoming pamphlet by the Labour Uncut gang, of which I have written a chapter, yesterday was the subject of the lead front page story in the Independent by Andrew Grice. You can see the full analysis with data at Labour Uncut here and the pamphlet will… Continue reading Revamping Labour’s union ties could help Ed Miliband

If Westminster is often a bubble, at frenzied times like last Thursday’s Syria vote it becomes even more so. Everyone is waiting for the latest news. What can easily happen, and what seems to have, is for Parliament to forget about the world outside entirely until it is over. As the Telegraph reports, some Labour MPs, as… Continue reading Syria: the hangover