Month: May 2014

Last weekend, Lutfur Rahman was re-elected as Mayor of Tower Hamlets, after easily the most contentious polling day and count in recent UK electoral history. Even though the mayoral result was announced on the Friday night after recounts, thousands of spoiled ballots, accusations of intimidation and a count venue lock-in, the council result, extraordinarily, did… Continue reading As the Tower Hamlets disaster enters a new phase, it remains an object lesson to Labour

“Earthquake”, screamed the headlines of even reputable news outlets on Monday. Witnessing them, it seems as if a large chunk of the Europe’s 400-odd million voters had got up one morning, and said to themselves in unison, “instead of supporting the mainstream parties I’ve voted for all my life, you know what, I now really… Continue reading The Eurosceptic earthquake that wasn’t

My Euro-elections piece for Progress, on Labour’s hangover from two years of hubris about mid-term poll leads, is here.

My fourteenth piece for the Independent, on the conclusions from Thursday’s local elections, is here.

Barkashov – note the symbol behind him So, it seems the Ukraine referenda were fixed in a stunningly obvious and clumsy way. But don’t just take my word for it: read this piece in the Economist, an august organ not known for its casual use of words such as “bogus” and “farce”. One last word on… Continue reading BREAKING: world’s greatest poll-predictor system discovered in Ukraine

UKIP’s results themselves are not the issue It’s complicated. Next week’s election will not change very much in itself. We will send members of our favourite parties off to Brussels again in greater or lesser numbers to vote on things that, we tell pollsters on a regular basis, we care little about. Everyone’s eyes will be… Continue reading The Euros are the elections that don’t matter. Except they do.

Map of #Ukraine redrawn at #Donetsk Peoples’ Republic leader Denis Pushilin’s office. Room 1007 pic.twitter.com/EQP826e7Xg— Chris Dzieciolowski (@kdzieciol) May 12, 2014 A tweet which fascinated me yesterday came from Chris Dzieciolowski, the Al Jazeera correspondent in Donetsk.Scribbled on top of the map with a slightly chilling informality, by the newly-independent region’s president, was this diagram. In it – by my… Continue reading Ukraine: three down, seven more regions to go?

Three years ago I wrote about pseudo-democracy, how a phenomenon of our times has been the introduction of a democracy-that-isn’t, to allow despots to continue in power while providing a vague cover of legitimacy.It occurred to me this morning that nowhere has this been better exemplified than with the referenda organised in Crimea and tomorrow… Continue reading The triumph of pseudo-democracy

PCS’ Mark Serwotka While we all want the morning of 8 May, 2015 to be defined by a triumphant Miliband glad-handing a crowd of jubilant supporters in Downing Street, it is worth taking a moment for a cold, hard look at the opposite: the Armageddon scenario of Labour returning to opposition. Although this may be… Continue reading Unite’s takeover of PCS raises the stakes for Labour

This morning I have been much affected by reading this excellent piece by Jaime Dettmer at the Daily Beast, which I heartily recommend to all; especially anyone who even vaguely doubts the brutal and murderous nature of the “pro-Russian” militias currently in the process of taking over East Ukraine.Rybak was a rather brave city councillor and former… Continue reading The murder of Volodymyr Rybak