In an exclusive interview with The Third Estate, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg sets out his vision for change It can’t be easy, being the leader of Britain’s third major political party. Caught between a disintegrating New Labour and a resurgent Conservative Party waiting for its coronation, convincing the British public that what you have [...]
Walking through security at Portcullis House, the fabulously expensive building standing adjacent to the Houses of Parliament, is a bit like going through any airport anywhere in the world. But making your way through the spacious courtyard, past green trees and sun-dappled water features under the enormous sparkling glass dome towering overhead, you could be [...]
“…how can you be so short-sighted to look never further than this week or next week, to have no impossible dream?” – Che Guevara in Evita September 11th. It’s a date that conjures up memories and few of them good. It was, after all, the historic day that Salvador Allende fell to the 1973 CIA [...]
Sunny Hundal, in a piece for The Guardian yesterday, made the case that we cannot give up on Afghanistan. It was, he says, unreasonable to expect the overthrow of the Taliban might come without British casualties or that we could secure positive social change in Afghanistan overnight. In and of themselves, these points are very [...]
You’d be forgiven for thinking Iraq is a peaceful place. It rarely occupies the British media these days. Only a couple of years ago, whilst Afghanistan was taking a back seat, barely a day went by without headlines of dozens killed by suicide bombs. These days, suicide is painless. On the same day that every [...]
To many of my generation, who were born in Thatcher’s Britain and whose politics were shaped by the stark reminder one morning in September 2001 that history was far from over, Tony Benn is a hero. It was another left-wing icon, Bob Dylan, who described a hero as “someone who understands the degree of responsibility [...]
After one of the costliest weeks for British forces in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown argued today that the ongoing campaign is a “patriotic duty” to keep the streets of Britain safe. “It comes back to terrorism on the streets of Britain,” he said. “If we were to allow the Taliban to be back in power in [...]
Friends, lefty bloggers, socialists, I’ve got a guilty secret. I’ve been actively campaigning for the Green Party in the upcoming European Elections on June 4th. It’s been a difficult time for me politically. With the split in Respect, the failure of John McDonnell and the Labour left to leave a scratch on the New Labour [...]
Given that this blog is usually replete with angry denunciations (and rightly so), it would seem only fair to highlight this almost unbelievable show of solidarity and bravery taking place in Afghanistan during the past week. As most of you will know, the incumbent Afghan government originally dismissed the notion of legislating against the concept [...]
We were all so glad to hear Obama’s announcement that he would shut down Guantanamo. We all thought that this would be the beginning of the end of torture, holding prisoners without charge, and extraordinary rendition, but as we have positive news from Guantanamo, hitting the media here with the release of Binyam Mohammed, a [...]
