Monthly Archives: June 2019

Britain, welcome to Europe. Nigel Farage’s upstart Brexit Party — which ran away with 32 percent of the vote and is set to gain 28 seats in the European Parliament — has blown the United Kingdom’s political system to pieces. And paradoxically, it’s … Continue reading →

After the initial surge of sympathy provoked in my sentimental old soul by Theresa May’s tears at the end of her speech in Downing Street, all I could think of were Oscar Wilde’s words on Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop: … Continue reading →

Was Margaret Thatcher right? Not about everything, obviously. Only the true-Blue keepers of the flame believe that, surely? But was she right about ‘popular capitalism‘, the intuitively plausible idea formed by Tories in heady days of the Eighties that held … Continue reading →

Jeremy Corbyn is not for turning. Swinging Labour behind another referendum seems to make sense on so many levels. Yet, for the moment anyway, he simply won’t do it – to the obvious frustration not just of #PeoplesVote fans but … Continue reading →

“The crisis”, according to Antonio Gramsci, “consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Sure, those lines were penned (in prison as … Continue reading →

“It’s a funny old world,” observed Margaret Thatcher as she was forced by her party to step down as Tory leader and UK prime minister back in 1990. She’d won the Conservatives three elections on the trot — two of … Continue reading →

With Theresa May finally on her way out of Downing Street, a Tory leadership contest that has been bubbling under for months is now starting. It’s a two-stage process. The first sees votes among Conservative MPs designed to whittle the … Continue reading →

London might be one of the world’s most multicultural, multi-ethnic cities but recent research shows that BME people, especially BME women, are seriously underrepresented in the capital’s local politics. The proportion of black and Asian councillors has risen over the … Continue reading →

Talk of Tory Islamophobia has some way to go before it rivals Labour antisemitism but it is getting louder. This week there was a damning report about Facebook posts by self-identified grassroots members of the Conservative Party, some of whom seem bent … Continue reading →

Lady Thatcher may be an icon to her most devoted fans but, as far as I know, none of them has ever worn a “What would Maggie do?” wristband. That’s not to say that they don’t find themselves asking (or … Continue reading →