UK Politics

19.06.2006 UK Politics

Am I a loony-leftie?

I am very tired of the labels used in the Labour Party to categorise people. You are either supposed to be a Blairite or Brownite, a reformer or a loony leftie etc. Further, these labels tend to be assigned by

18.06.2006 UK Politics

Compass – direction for the left?

I spent all of yesterday at the Compass Conference in London. Bit depressing, spending all of a summer Saturday indoors, but it was worthwhile to go along. The programme of the conference – attended by 1000 people they claim –

09.06.2006 UK Politics

Labour’s World Cup blogs – but what about politics?

Excellent news: the Labour Party has just released 2 new blogs. Bad news: these are about football! Yes, I’m quite serious. Alistair Campbell and Sadiq Khan MP will write blog entries about the World Cup – click here for the

09.06.2006 UK Politics

Britain’s prisons

From Polly Toynbee’s article from today’s Guardian: How tragically revealing that half of all prisoners are completely illiterate and another 20% have a reading age under eight. Plus prison numbers will hit record levels this week, and the UK has

08.06.2006 UK Politics

Blogging against torture

June is Amnesty International’s anti-torture month, and a group of enterprising bloggers have set up Bloggers Against Torture. All you have to do is link to them (I have here, and also in ‘Links’ in the right column) and write

04.06.2006 EU Politics / UK Politics

Labour Movement for Europe – Launch

OK, we’re finally ready to go! The branch of the Labour Movement for Europe in London and the South East are launching this month… The LABOUR MOVEMENT FOR EUROPE LONDON AND SOUTH EAST OF ENGLAND REGIONAL BRANCH invites you to

02.06.2006 UK Politics

Redwood: the EU traffic light lesson!

It must be a quiet news day in the UK as the new traffic policy ideas from the Conservative Party have hit the press, piloted by none other than that die-hard eurosceptic John Redwood. The bold idea is that drivers

02.06.2006 UK Politics

The ‘over there’ mentality

It was pointed out to me recently by Helena that for most Europeans, travelling from their home country to another did not strictly entail them going overseas and hence I ought to watch my vocabulary when talking about international travel.

17.05.2006 UK Politics

Sack the minister, ignore the review: Blair’s nuclear plans

OK, so we have known for months that Tony Blair has favoured nuclear power in order to keep the UK’s CO2 emissions down. Last night, giving a speech to the CBI, he gave the clearest statement yet that he backs

16.05.2006 UK Politics

Scared of Gordon, but there are there other options?

I’m stuck. Really stuck. The more time goes on, the more Blair’s reputation gets battered, the more he comes up with more silly policies, the more I want him to stay as Prime Minister! Or, let me correct that, the

16.05.2006 Technology / UK Politics

Labour, the web, and an honest conversation?

The first parts of a sensible debate have just started in the Labour Party about the future of its website, and its presence on the web more generally. This stems from Labour’s relatively poor local election showing on 4th May,

11.05.2006 UK Politics

Blair really needs to worry… when Cliff Richard feels sorry for him

I winced when I read this article in The Guardian that veteran crooner Cliff Richard felt so sorry for Tony Blair in the aftermath of going to war in Iraq that he let Blair go and stay in his summer