Guest post by Roland Miller McCall
Australia went to the polls today after the most mundane election campaigns anyone can remember. Neither Labor nor the Coalition opposition has engaged with the big issues nor proposed a vision for Australia’s future. In recent days the debate has descended into high farce with the defining issue of a [...]
Like most readers of this blog, the Budget made me pretty angry – the VAT increase and tighter controls on benefits combined with the cut in corporation tax make a complete mockery of the claims that this Budget was ‘progressive’ in any sense, and millions of the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country [...]
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 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 will be [...]
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 [...]
Well the election is over, the dust is settling, back-room deals are being made to find new ways to screw the country over, you’ve forgotten your towel and things are looking grim. DON’T PANIC!
It’s not as bad as it seems.
Across the lefty web, journalists and bloggers are taking stock of their situation, looking for explanations [...]
Politicians keep going on the radio saying that we shouldn’t be talking about political process, but the economy. They’re telling us not to worry our silly little heads over big boy politics (like electoral reform), and even saying that business is more important than democracy.
The few hundred people who were denied their vote despite going [...]
It’s been a dark, dark night thus far. But the election of Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavillion as the country’s first ever Green MP is fantastic news. With any luck, this will lead to future successes for the Greens. A true radical and an excellent MP has been returned to Parliament. Congratulations Caroline!
OK, this’ll probably go one of two ways now. Either the Tories will get a really narrow majority, or they’ll come damn close to it. My hunch, though, is that in the latter event they’ll go ahead and form a minority government anyway – the Lib Dems and Labour don’t look like they’ve done anywhere [...]
In Cameron’s constituency victory speech he said the Tories were on course to have the most seats “in eighty years”. Eighty years ago there was um…a Labour minority government. A few years before that the Tories did have a big majority, but not as big as much more recently, in 1983. So what the crap [...]
