“He doesn’t like not being liked,” said Katie Perrior of Boris Johnson in this 2016 of the then outgoing Mayor of London in this 2016 essay by Jeremy Cliffe. Those words have stuck with me since reading that essay back
Continue reading
Category: UK Politics
2019 UK General Election Tactical Voting Guide
⚠️ This is Version 8 of this post, re-written to make it all clearer to read. For the sake of transparency the older Version 3, Version 4, Version 5 and Version 6 of the post can be found here. NOTE the
Continue reading
The problem of the constituency link and parochialism in UK politics
Back a decade ago when I was building websites for politicians as a job, one of my clients wrote the following: I was born in a council house in Kendray, a district of Barnsley, on the 9th April 1955. Apart
Continue reading
Radicals UK – what could it become?
What makes good politics? It has been a sort of obsession of mine over the years, although I have never actually written the question in that way before. On this blog I have looked at the fortunes of the Yes
Continue reading Helping “Radicals UK”, Jeremy Cliffe’s inadvertent political movement
At 2251 on 17.10.2017, Jeremy Cliffe tweeted this: https://twitter.com/JeremyCliffe/status/920391741655666697 At 2316 the Twitter name @RadicalsUK was secured by me, and then I messaged Jeremy. The domain name radicalsuk.com was registered by me at 2244, and a basic WordPress powered site
Continue reading
Scottish independence – now more compelling than before
Christian Allard, upon entering the Scottish Parliament after another MSP resigned in 2013, was sworn in to the Parliament in both English and French. https://twitter.com/leomiklasz/status/841621272484302850 Today a Polish student feels that, while Brexit feels like a rejection, Scotland is holding
Continue reading
Where does the Brexit vote leave the cause of an independent Scotland in the EU?
tldr; “…it is easier for an independent Scotland to join the EU, than for the UK to leave it…” – thanks @odtorium on Twitter. But if you do want the detail, read on! Back in 2012, prior to the Scottish
Continue reading
The UK government and EU flood aid money: about as clear as the Cumbria flood waters
The UK has floods once more – this time in Cumbria. 60000 homes are without power, and the region had record rainfall. That follows floods in winter 2013-2014 in the South West of England. On 14th February 2014, The Independent
Continue reading
#PortugalCoup, and Britain’s post-fact politics
“Eurozone crosses Rubicon as Portugal’s anti-euro Left banned from power” screamed Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph on Friday last week. The Telegraph even followed up with a piece about why Portugal’s situation was a threat to everyone else. Everyone
Continue reading
UK – German relations in the context of the UK’s EU referendum
I was invited to speak at DG Cambridge on 14th October about UK – German relations in the context of David Cameron’s EU referendum. Antony Carpen was kind enough to film the speech, and put it up on Youtube: There
Continue reading
The more “out” of the EU the UK is, the more damage to the economy
A tweet by Sony Kapoor: Any economically sensible relation with the #EU post #Brexit will be at the cost of a much greater loss of the sovereignty sceptics cherish — Sony Kapoor (@SonyKapoor) October 16, 2015 This is absolutely right,
Continue reading
The “Remain” campaign needs honesty above all
A legend persists about the 1975 referendum that confirmed the UK’s continued membership of the then European Economic Community (EEC); Britain voted to stay in an economic union back then, it is often stated, but the European Union has since
Continue reading