A little more from me this week on the hypocrisy of the Liberal Democrats. I should point out that I have nothing in particular against the party. Policy-wise, they are better than Labour and the Tories. Not least in their long-running campaign for Proportional Representation, something which is absolutely essential to make Britain’s political system [...]
As the campaign manager for the ‘Ralph for Leader’ campaign, I’m pleased to confirm that Ralph Miliband, former lecturer in politics at LSE, Leeds and Roosevelt Universities, as well as former editor of The Socialist Register, will be standing for Labour Leader. As mentioned by David Miliband, one of Ralph’s two sons, Ralph is currently “scratching [...]
On saturday I went to rally for electoral reform outside the houses of parliament at an even organised by take back Parliament. In many ways an excellent event. THe crowd of around a thousand were enthused and engaged. Not least because of the efforts of organiser Guy Aitchison: Perhaps a point of contention at the [...]
It’s been a while since we’ve had a Carnival of Socialism, but in these grim grey days of Tory government, austerity cuts, attacks on unions, airbrushed faces, airbrushed parliaments, parties without leaders, leaders without parties, Theresa May, and other detestable shit it seems that we are in need of such a project. For those readers [...]
This is a guest post by Francesca Rose Lewis. Britain prides itself on social health policy. The NHS is our pride and joy, and however bad the economy gets, spending on healthcare services is always ‘ring-fenced’. Americans, we think, could learn a thing or two about how to treat the sick, the poor and the [...]
Today Gary Mann, a 52 year old former fire fighter, will be extradited to serve a 2 year prison sentence imposed by a Portugese court. Mann was originally arrested during the Euro 2004 football tournament, on suspicion of causing a riot. He was tried and convicted within 48 hours of his initial arrest. At his [...]
Well, it happened. Not quite as anyone had been expecting, but it happened. The moment we’ve dreaded for the last three years. David Cameron is the new Prime Minister. I can’t say I will be sorry to see Brown go. I can’t say New Labour didn’t deserve to lose this election. I can say I [...]
There have been rather a lot of people around the left and the Labour Party today saying that the Labour Party should not go into coalition with the lib dems, and should not vote for any proportional system. Well of course a proportional system would mean the labour party losing some seats but looking at [...]
There are many questions Labour needs to ask of itself, but why it lost the election is not actually at the top of the agenda. These things happen in a multi party democracy. And as a rule, a party’s share of the vote slides lower the longer it has been in power. What matters then, [...]
Now that Brown’s promised to step down, it’s looking increasingly plausible that our next government will be a centre-left coalition of some kind. No doubt if this actually happens the rightwing press will go into a frenzy about how illegitimate and unfair it is for the Tories not to get into Government, but they can [...]
