A new website, OpenLeft, founded by James Purnell MP, former cabinet minister (the one who in his resignation letter invited Gordon Brown to ‘step aside’ as party leader and prime minister), under the auspices...
Jack Straw’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill is a feeble affair: the term ‘rag-bag’ might have been invented for it. It lacks not just vision and any trace of radicalism but even a coherent...
J and I are still reeling from the effects of the film Katyn, the latest product of the great Polish director Andrzej Wajda, and indisputably a masterpiece. Watching it is a gruelling experience, but...
In a recent post on a number of current issues, I mentioned my belief that the police had been justified in arresting Damian Green MP for questioning, and searching his parliamentary and other offices,...
In recent days the Department for International Development and the Conservative Party have each published major policy statements on international development and aid, the former in an impressive new White Paper (pdf file) and...
Perhaps at last something buried deep in the so-called middle east peace process is beginning to stir. First the doggedly right-wing and famously obstinate Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for the first time accepts...
Several propositions are acquiring the status of well-known truths from frequent repetition, despite all being false. For example, — Proposition 1: The News of the World phone-tapping scandal will run and run, eclipsing even...
Bloggers who entrust their political views and comments to the blogosphere must expect to be misrepresented, misquoted, misunderstood by-mistake-on-purpose, quoted out of context and otherwise have their case distorted by other bloggers of a...
Labour party members recently received a circular message purporting to come from Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, although — to be charitable — it seems unlikely that Mr...
The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, made a statement this afternoon (11 May 09) on MPs’ expenses, and took a number of points of order on the subject. This must have...