Andy Burnham has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to renew British democracy. He should take it.On Monday I had lunch with an American friend who was visiting London. I mentioned that later that day I was co-sponsoring an event in Parliament with Labour MP Clive Lewis on the subject of defending UK democracy. Her expression changed immediately. "Please," she said, "learn from us." She wasn't talking about Donald Trump as an individual. She was talking about what has happened to the institutions of American democracy over the past few years, especially in the 18 months of Trump 2.0. "We assumed the system would protect itself. We assumed there would always be enough guardrails. We assumed ... (more) |
Jonathan Liew tots up the price English cricket has paid for BazballEmbed from Getty ImagesBen Stokes's final text innings was embarrassingly self-indulgent. As Jonathan Riew says in a great article in the Guardian today, it "managed to capture in a single moment everything people dislike about this team". But he also looks far deeper into what ails English cricket. So he praises Stokes's "legendary" talent, endurance, ambition and competitiveness, and says those qualities could have inspired England to big series wins if they had been intelligently harnessed: Instead, English cricket was more interested in commodifying Stokes's talent than channelling it. Under the directorship of Andrew Strauss in the mid-2010s, and then ... (more) |
Why the Lib Dem Defence Bonds plan is a bad ideaThe recent (and long overdue) release of the UK's Defence Investment Plan (DIP) has only intensified the long-running debate about how to fund an increase in the UK Defence Budget, a debate that has already cost the Labour Government two Ministers. Cursory examination of the Government's plans soon revealed that rather than being "fully funded", the plan actually requires a further £4.7bn of cuts to other departments and £10.7bn of "efficiency savings" in the next 4 years, neither of which have yet been identified. It also fails to provide any budget for 2030 onwards, with that can kicked down the ... (more) |
Centenary of Emily Hobhouse's death marked in CornwallEmbed from Getty ImagesThis is a letter published by the Cornish Times: On June 13, a special gathering was held at The Story of Emily to mark the centenary of the death of Emily Hobhouse, the British humanitarian and peace campaigner whose work exposed the suffering of women and children in the concentration camps of the South African War. It was a privilege to attend this commemorative event and to join others in remembering one of Cornwall's most remarkable daughters. Born in the hamlet of St Ive, near Liskeard, Emily Hobhouse dedicated her life to humanitarian causes and the pursuit ... (more) |
Reg Calvert, Oliver Smedley, Hayek and the nature of libertyWhen Oliver Smedley shot Reg Calvert, more was at stake than a row over a radio transmitter. According to a 2011 blog post by Adam Curtis- thanks to a reader for putting me on to it - theirs was a dispute about the very nature of liberty: A historian called Adrian Johns has written a brilliant book about Pirate Radio in the 1960s, called Death of a Pirate. In it he argues that Reg Calvert and Oliver Smedley represent two completely different kinds of "privateer". Reg Calvert was part of an old, unruly tradition of true independence and libertarian freedom. ... (more) |
What would it take for Capita to be banned from government contracts?The latest edition of my email newsletter about work in Parliament, A Lord's Eye View, is out and you can also read it in full below. But if you'd like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now: Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords, this time looking at the government's continuing willingness to award business to Capita. Capita and the case for exclusion Capita missed the promised end of June deadline for sorting out problems with the civil service pension scheme, a crisis that I've ... (more) |
Calling out the anti-asylum seeker nonsenseNation Cymru reports that a Plaid Cymru Senedd Member has called out the "bullshit" and misinformation being spread about the Welsh Government's Nation of Sanctuary policy ahead of a Reform-led debate. The news site says that in a video posted on TikTok by Kiera Marshall she said it was "time to call bullshit" on disinformation and myths circulating about asylum seekers and refugees living in Wales: The MS listed a number claims made about people seeking sanctuary which she said were false. Speaking in her social video, Ms Marshall explained that refugees and asylum seekers do not get priority access ... (more) |
An esoteric walk around Aleister Crowley's LondonLord Bonkers had no time for him, but Aleister Crowley has been crossing my path of late. So here's an esoteric walk across his London with John Rogers and Marco Visconti: This walking tour weaves a web of mystery and magick through a portion of central London forever haunted by the man known as The Great Beast. Starting at Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment we head up to Charing Cross, St Martin's Lane to Watkins Bookshop in Cecil Court which has been on the site for over 120 years. We then follow the magic thread to Henrietta Street in Covent ... (more) |
Tears and celebrations as river 'wiggle' restoredThe judges have torn themselves away from England's World Cup game, and our Headline of the Day Award goes to BBC News. The headline stands above an encouraging story from Shropshire: An 18-month-long project to "re-wiggle" a river after more than a century has been successfully completed prompting "tears and celebrations". A section of the River Kemp, in south Shropshire, had been straightened by landowners in the 1800s, disconnecting it from its natural floodplain and reducing biodiversity. Now water is flowing in the meander again, after it was restored in a project led by Severn Rivers Trust and involved local ... (more) |
Vince Cable writes: Manchesterism and LocalismAndy Burnham's launch speech in Manchester raised hopes of a sustained plan to devolve power away from Whitehall. If the reality matches the rhetoric, that will be a massive achievement and will greatly improve our system of governance. But any Liberal Democrat who has been battling for decades for genuine local, community-based decision making and against the infantilisation of local government is entitled to some scepticism. My own formative experience is somewhat different: serving in the Coalition Cabinet which first launched the idea of devolving powers to elected mayors for city-regions broadly on the London model (prompted by a report ... (more) |