Author Archives: tpbale

Red Ed.  His opponents swear he is.  Some of his supporters wish to God he was.  For every Tory politician who claims that Labour has moved left under his leadership, there’s a Labour activist who only wishes that it really … Continue reading →

The rise of populist radical left parties like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain pose something of a challenge for academic observers of politics. Our understanding of populism per se has almost certainly been overly influenced by the fact … Continue reading →

Not that many people are prepared to go into bat for Ed Miliband. But if they do, they almost always make the following observation. Ed spent a year-and-a-half in the Cabinet between 2008 and 2010, and spent more than five … Continue reading →

With May 7th fast approaching, observers of politics, be they journalists or academics, will be asking, just as they’ve been doing since at least the mid-nineties, when British parties first woke up to the web, “will this be the first internet … Continue reading →

The fact that the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition has clearly been unable to meet its target of reducing net migration from the hundreds to the tens of thousands – a promise that could almost certainly never have been met and therefore … Continue reading →

The horrific murder of four Jewish men in a Paris supermarket has understandably provoked a debate about levels of anti-Semitism throughout Europe, including, of course, the UK. According to some campaigning organisations things aren’t good and may be getting worse. … Continue reading →

A day or two before David Cameron made his long-awaited ‘big speech’ on immigration on 28 November, Nick Clegg warned him not to float plans that would see ‘the British people…plunged into a cycle of wild overpromising and inevitable disappointment, … Continue reading →

‘Suppose they gave a war and no one came?’ became a catchphrase of the US peace movement in the 1960s. What happened over the last week in British politics couldn’t help but remind me of it. Why? Because of the … Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago, a report by academics at UCL made one of the strongest cases yet for the economic benefits of immigration to the UK – not for the first time. Report after report has come to broadly … Continue reading →