Month: October 2013

“Oh, what a tangled web we weaveWhen first we practise to deceive.”             – Sir Walter Scott, Marmion Ah, Falkirk. We drew a line under it, didn’t we? Only we didn’t.A couple of months ago Uncut noted that the Falkirk debacle was unfinished business. But even we didn’t expect there to be quite such a… Continue reading The web we have woven in Falkirk

I didn’t know Norman Geras, or “Norm”, as he was known by the blogging fraternity, that well – we certainly never spoke, although I had a number of exchanges with him – but I feel strangely like I have lost someone important today. As well as a blogger, I am aware he has been a… Continue reading To Norm

Setting aside for the moment the fact that the Westminster lobby seems to be yet to clock the political turmoil in store for Labour over the next six months as it approaches its special conference, there is another issue to which Labour must pay attention if it is serious about winning: its polling. As we… Continue reading With Labour’s lead narrowing, the next election is now too close to call

With the infiltration of jihadist groups into Syrian rebel forces, it was only a matter of time before they responded to Assad’s massacres in kind, as it now appears they did during August in some Alawite villages. Back in our own country and the US, depressingly, rebel killings will now be taken as retrospective justification… Continue reading Syria: no, we are not better off now

I wrote this conference conclusion piece a week ago for Labour Uncut and forgot to repost it here, but I think it still applies perfectly.Bottom line is that the next six months look set to be fairly momentous in the party’s history.

A few days on from the reshuffle of all three parties’ ministerial or Shadow teams, a little perspective on Labour’s, or what seems to have universally become known as the “Blairite cull”. Jim Murphy, who was merely moved on from Defence to a rather less important department, DFID, is now clearly the only remaining outrider… Continue reading Last Blairite standing: watch out for the sharks

Thanks to the Daily Mail’s rather unpleasant and ill-conceived trashing (“The Man Who Hated Britain”) of Ed Miliband’s Marxist father, Ralph Miliband, Tory party conference seems to have been rather eclipsed by the fallout from the piece, which has led to overwhelming support for Miliband. What is most amusing is the “glass houses” element that… Continue reading The indefatigable Daily Mail

Think I’ve probably already mentioned this but, just in case, I have authored Chapter Two of this fine tome, Labour manifesto: uncut, now available for download here. Called Leadership and party, it’s an essay on how, tricky though the whole party reform agenda is, it’s thoroughly worth doing, should be extended to other areas and could even… Continue reading Labour Uncut book now available for download