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Re-engaging with the alienated “untouchables”
The Labour campaign continues to make good progress whilst the Tories lurch from one failed artifice after another, and Ed Miliband is increasingly taking command with growing confidence. The election...
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The big downside of this election
Apart from the narrowness in the polling between the two main parties, the other dramatic characteristic of this election is the number of people who are profoundly disgruntled and deep-down angry at...
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Why any Labour leader who can’t reach working class voters will lose again
This is a defining moment for the future, and arguably the survival, of the Labour Party. In the coming months there will be much debate about what went wrong and where next. In 2005, I produced...
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Aspiration for all would be fine, but neither the Tories nor the Blairites...
The Tory manifesto was artfully targeted at making everyone a weeny bit richer, and some a lot richer. It offered to raise the income tax threshold to £12,500 (though the rich get more from that than...
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Immigration and benefits: the political economy of scapegoating
Immigration and benefits. Immigration and benefits. Immigration and benefits. I can barely remember a time when these weren’t commanding headlines or the imaginations of politicians. One might say that...
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A Lab-Lib Dem merger? A very, very bad idea
One question that comes up time and again from punters on the doorstep to far left activists is “why can’t you all just unite?” (although, ironically, Left Unity has ruled out unity with the Trade...
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Gordon Brown and power
Has Gordon Brown reached down from heaven and, like the vengeful Presbyterian God, smited Jeremy Corbyn with his great clunking fist? Well, no. The much-trailed Power with a Purpose speech wasn’t the...
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Cameron talks New Labour, but acts old Tory class warrior
Some journalists are incredibly gullible. On the basis of his rhetoric, Dan Hodges tweeted “Could someone on the Left tell me which part of David Cameron’s speech I’m meant to disagree with.” How about...
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Whatever happened to the workers? Is Labour now a middle class party?
The key to “professional” success in the land of comment is to never let the facts get in the way of a good narrative. If hard numbers and social realities are inconvenient, one can safely shove them...
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Confessions of a Corbynista croissant muncher
When a freshly-appointed Baron feels able to devote his maiden speech in the upper house to a condescending de haut en bas attack on commoners for being too damn posh, it’s entirely clear that...
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