Scarcity and the Social ContractScarcity on the surface When I sat down for lunch with a local council leader one afternoon, in a café adjacent to a YMCA, one of the first things we discussed was capacity. The ability of the state to serve its people, to foster a society where they can access social mobility, and to give them support when they need it. As I sat down and talked with them, drinking my "woke" chai latte, I understood some of the problems we faced in Somerset and it was upsetting. Children unable to access SEND schooling, or falling out of education. People ... (more) |
Andrew Lownie on today's arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-WindsorAndrew Lownie, the indefatigable author of Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, responds to today's developments. (more) |
The rise and fall of Captain HindsightFor many of us growing up in the 1970's the TV superhero Hong Kong Phooey was a regular fix on our televisions, despite only running for one series of 16 episodes. Mild mannered janitor, Penry Pooch by day, and superhero by night, ably 'assisted' by his sidekick Spot the Cat. Oddly this bumbling character seems an early metaphor for the Starmer government with its bumbling mild mannered Prime Minister and his trusty sidekick Morgan McSweeney, constantly making U-Turns and never really being seen for who he really is by the people around him. A former bumbling Prime minister coined the ... (more) |
Why aren't the Liberal Democrats doing better?The Liberal Democrats and the need to move away from the 'Core Vote Strategy' After the catastrophe of 2015, when the Liberal Democrats were reduced to eight seats and 8% of the vote, the party needed a serious strategic overall. The 20% core vote strategy developed by Mark Pack and David Howarth provided it. It argued that survival required cultivating and appealing to a voting bloc rooted in a younger, more tolerant and pro-remain base. And that foundation could carry the party through difficult cycles. At the time, that was exactly what we needed. The result has been 72 Liberal ... (more) |
The liberal case for the Employment Rights Act changesThe latest implementation of the Employment Rights Act is not an attack on order; it is a move away from procedural friction and towards fair, workable industrial relations. Liberal Democrats should say so. The Employment Rights Act changes now taking effect should be easy for Liberal Democrats to welcome. Not because we owe any particular institution a blank cheque, but because we believe in free association, fair process, and accountable power. In the labour market, power is not held only by the state; employers also hold it. For a decade, trade union law drifted towards procedural friction. The Trade Union ... (more) |
The Iron Lady: first episode of Political Fictions is now out!The first episode of my new podcast Political Fictions is out, in which Cory and I take a look at the Margaret Thatcher biopic, The Iron Lady: Feedback very welcome, and do share this podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. Show notes You can view the IMDB page for The Iron Lady here. Cory's email newsletter Paperback Rioter. Mark's family of email newsletters. Our theme tune is "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and licensed under the Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Sign up to get the latest news and analysis (more) |
U-turn or incompetence? Labour get it wrong againThe Guardian is absolutely scathing about the decision by Keir Starmer to change his mind, yet again, about cancelling elections in a number of local councils in England. The paper says that being forced to abandon plans to delay local elections in England with fewer than three months' notice is not just another policy U-turn by the government, it brings to a head issues of aptitude and judgment: The rationale seemed sound: avoid electing councillors to bodies that would be abolished under Labour's reorganisation of local government. The political problem was that 21 of the 30 councils were Labour-led. That ... (more) |
Group considers budgetGateshead Council's budget will go before full council next week. On Monday the Lib Dem group had a meeting with the Chief Exec and Director of Finance to go through the proposals on which we will be voting a week tomorrow. After the officers left, the group had a discussion about our budget. The end result was an amendment which Cllr Ron Beadle, as Leader of the Opposition, will move. At this (more) |
The Joy of Six 1477Martin Parr looks at successful and unsuccessful attempts to depose a prime minister: "Labour, significantly, has never toppled a prime minister. It's not in the culture of so cooperativist a party: there's no equivalent of the 1922 Committee. And whenever it might have happened, the challenger blinked: Herbert Morrison with Attlee; Roy Jenkins with Wilson; David Miliband with Brown; Wes Streeting may have just joined the roster of the rueful." Sumaiya Motara on the brutal contest for low-paid work: "It's like The Hunger Games, but you're all trying to get a job in a shop where you're going to be ... (more) |
How many councillors has Reform UK lost since May?Here is a list of the councillors which Reform has shed from the May 2025 local elections and from those elections in by-elections since. The latest update is the departure of two Warwickshire councillors. Donna Edmunds (Shropshire, suspended by Reform UK and then quit the party) Luke Shingler (Warwickshire, now an independent) Desmond Clarke (Nottinghamshire, resigned as councillor) Andrew Kilburn (Durham, resigned as a councillor) Wayne Titley (Staffordshire, resigned as a councillor) Mark Broadhurst (Doncaster, expelled by Reform) Adam Smith (West Northamptonshire, suspended by Reform and then expelled) John Bailey (Durham, resigned as a councillor) Daniel Taylor (Kent, suspended by ... (more) |