Recent Articles

How the hell do we get out of this mess?

I’ve tried to be pretty reasonable about the Jubilee. I recognise that as a republican, this wasn’t going to be my weekend. I’ve watched DVDs and drunk wine and stayed away from as much of the nonsense as possible.

But this story about the disgusting treatment of “workfare” stewards, juxtaposed with the four day celebration of institutionalised wealth, power and privilege has made it impossible not to scream through my fingertips, down the keyboard at anyone still willing to listen.

Our society is collapsing. It’s been happening slowly for a very long time but now seems to be in free-fall.
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Why we need to understand all sides of the welfare reform debate

Everybody in the country should read this piece by Sue Marsh and get angry. What’s happening to Sue and many, many other DLA claimants is a depressing and disgraceful example of how this government are attempting to reduce the deficit by breaking the backs of the very poorest in our society.

But that’s not the whole story. It would be remiss of me not to mention that ATOS, welfare reform and Lord Freud were all originally brought in by James Purnell and Liam Byrne as Labour ministers.

That’s the admission that cleanses my lefty soul; that goes some way to placating the increasingly loud and well organised disabled lobby. But that’s not the whole story either.
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For the first time, George Osborne is failing

This government will not lose when it fails on Labour’s terms. It will not lose the next election on the NHS, cuts to frontline services or climate change – despite conspicuous failings on these three fronts and many others about which we care deeply.

They won’t fail on these terms because at the last election, and for at least six months after that, we let the Tories convince voters that the deficit was the single most important issue.

To stomach the “nasty” party they needed the huskies, the NHS pledges, the hoody-hugging. But once those votes were cast, people didn’t want to think they were wrong in the choice they made.
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Why all-male panels in politics must end

I’ve written about this before in the context of the Labour Party conference, but it’s a wide spread problem and if anything it seems to be getting worse.

Panels at political events are, more frequently than ever, men only affairs. I’m very glad today to be a signatory to a letter in today’s Guardian calling for a stop to this practice.

When I wrote about this last time, I was (yawn, of course) accused of tokenism.
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Why both the Labour left and #occupy are running out of time

There are some issues on which I can genuinely see both sides of the argument. #Occupy is one of them.

The political [Labour] left have – in several places – criticised the Occupy movement for the lack of clarity in their aims. For me, this misses the main point the movement is trying to make.

The civic [non-aligned] left are quite right to highlight the complete political failure that led not only to the credit crunch and the global financial crisis, but to the political paralysis in its wake.
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