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Cheerio then…
This evening, Sunny Hundal, a staunch Labour supporter ever since he voted LibDem in 2010, tweeted a picture of me campaigning for London’s independent candidate Siobhan Benita. I can’t complain; it’s true. For the first time in my life – in 21 years of Labour membership – I am campaigning for a candidate who isn’t Labour. [...]
Does age matter at all when it comes to voting?
Have guest posted on the Jailhouse Lawyer blog. What do you think?
Scotland the free
I’m confused. The Government says that a Scottish independence referendum in 2013 is binding but in 2014 it will be illegitimate. I suspect this is an example of politicians making stuff up as it suits them rather than there being any profound democratic or constitutional principle at stake, and Labour has no business supporting the [...]
A short defence of @hackneyabbott
Maybe Diane was a little thoughtless. However, racism doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it exists in application to dynamics of power. Anyone who spends 50 years as a black woman is going to have experienced a constant stream of active, passive, institutional and even well-meaning racism in that time as well as a whole load [...]
PCC backs Daily Mail over racist riot coverage
In October I made my first ever complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over a xenophobic piece in the Daily Mail blaming foreigners for the summer riots. I have just had the response from the PCC, which has backed the Daily Mail in saying the code was not breached. The ruling is below but my [...]
Is it time for fixed-price housing?
Yesterday in parliament, over 100 MPs demanded a form of price stabilisation mechanism for petrol after an online petition gathered more than 110,000 signatures. It left me thinking about he real price pressure on the average household: that of housing. Between mortgages and rent, the British people are in virtual slavery, working hideous hours or [...]
What would Tory EU rebels do if they were really serious?
It’s hard to describe the EU referendum issue as an object of the Tory Right. It’s too mainstream for that, there are even Labour MPs who support the proposal. Yet is is the Tory Right who are leading the charge and it’s not irrelevant that we arrive here with that group already feeling sidelined by the LibDem junior coalition [...]
Boundary changes: London
On the grounds that May 2010′s local elections were on the same day as the General Election – so no subjective weightings required, I thought I would apply those council results to the new parliamentary boundaries (click here for the spreadsheet). In seats, the last election’s results look like Labour – 32 (down 6) Conservative [...]
Faux feminism and the gender balanced leadership
There is a suggestion that the Labour Party rules should direct that where the Leader is male, the Deputy Leader should be female, and presumable vice versa. It makes me want to howl at not only how unfeminist it is as a proposal but how anti-feminist the effects could be. This is a notably warped [...]
Is there are social market solution for utility planning?
The government’s proposed shake up of planning law looks suspiciously like the proposals they opposed when not in government. From my uneducated view, planning reforms all seem like government attempts to stimulate the economy by making it easier to attract capital investment, ultimately generating revenue from land. But planning is one of those areas where [...]
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