The end of opposition
Yesterday the official opposition gave up. In a packed room at The Insititute for Education Ed Balls finally confirmed what many of us have been thinking for a while: The Labour Party aren’t the alternative. As the cuts continue to bite, the wages of workers remain stagnant and the economic outlook for the UK remains [...]
Three things about the independence referendum scrap
First: let’s get one thing straight. Nations have a right to self determination in international law. David Cameron may quibble about the devolved powers of the Holyrood Parliament under the Scotland Act. He may even, if it came to a battle in the international court, win. In my experience the arc of judicial rulings bend [...]
Stop Lying About the Nation’s Credit Card
We’re making sure that this generation does not bankrupt the next. Not saddling them with our debts, not maxing out on the nation’s credit card, but building a better future for our children. Tory Party Chairman Baroness Sayeeda Warsi For a party feigning concern about “the nation’s credit card”, the Conservatives are remarkably comfortable with the [...]
Save Our Services: East Edinburgh Edition
Sometimes, something happens that restores your faith in activism, and humanity in general. This week, I had one of those moments at a public meeting for Save Our Services East Edinburgh. I’ve been to a lot of meetings since the Coalition government came to power, and not all of them have been terribly interesting or [...]
Labour, loveable institutions, elections and the real big picture: a scattershot attempt to start a painful discussion
02:59 in a bedroom in Belfast is the wrong time and place to get deeply restless and fired up for a new, robust, proud and striving social democracy. And, as you’re about to see, it probably does little for coherence. Strangely, this restlessness was inspired by James Purnell’s Newsnight film on welfare, listless staring at [...]
The Labour Party and Northern Ireland
At the risk of sounding like I have too much experience of this, I imagine that being voted out of government must be a lot like getting chucked by someone you really liked. The initial shock is followed by despair – closely followed by the attribution of blame and an identity crisis. A process of [...]
Time for reflection
Like many people, I’ve spent much of today asleep. The day after results night is always a strange one – a day of jubilation, or a day of disappointment. For me, it’s normally a mixture of the two. And so it is this year. But after we’ve all caught up on sleep, had some proper [...]
A more civilised kind of politics is not ‘from another planet’
I had forgotten how civilised Scottish politics is. Last night, I was representing the Greens at the Edinburgh University Students’ Association hustings. Three years ago I stood on the same stage and argued with Harry Cole (and 2 others) about who should be next student president. If memory serves, it was a raucous affair – [...]
What is the point of the Labour Party?
Let’s start with this, from The Guardian: ‘Labour urged the government to publish its higher-education white paper, which was due in winter, instead of revealing policy in “dribs and drabs”. The shadow business secretary, John Denham, said: “David Willetts is clearly threatening public universities with cut-price competition from the private sector [which] do not need [...]
For Our Generation it’s the Greens or it’s Nothing
Our generation has taken a beating. Where the Thatcher government waged a thinly disguised class war, our generation has been under attack for the past 13 years. The anger we’ve seen from young people on our streets is an anger driven by the knowledge that we’ve been abandoned. We’ve been abandoned by a political class [...]
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