The future looked better back then

  When Tony Blair stepped down as leader of the Labour party in 2006 he gave a parting speech at conference. Of course he wanted to summarise his achievements in government, of which there were many, but most importantly, re-reading his speech you realise that he wanted to give us all some advice.   I…

Making history

History was made yesterday in Philadelphia. For the first time ever, a woman became nominated for President by a major US party. That woman is none other than Hillary Clinton. It seems rather absurd that women are still yet to break into the upper echelons of American political life. Sure Hillary has been Secretary of…

Goodbye Natalie

Whilst Theresa moves in her furniture and Owen and Jeremy tear each other apart, poor old Natalie Bennett has slipped out of the limelight for the last time. The leader of the Green party for the past four years Bennett came in for some tough criticism during last year’s general election. Often flustered and prone…

When did we stop being nice?

Reading the BBC news website this morning, I realised something. We’ve stopped being nice. It’s the kind of thing your gran would say. We don’t have communities anymore, nobody talks to you in the street, it was never like that in her day. But this is about way more than a loss of communities. We’ve…

Here come the girls…

…oh no, actually they’re nowhere to be seen. For once more in Labour’s history women have been pushed down the pecking order when it comes to being the party’s leader. Do we have a women problem? It’s an interesting question isn’t it. Unfortunately I think evidence suggests we might have to say yes, sort of….

Labour’s achilles heel; Trident

Before MPs can pack up their offices for a long overdue holiday, they will have to make a very important decision today as they are asked whether or not they support the renewal of Trident, our nuclear defence system. Labour has long been split over this particular issue, and it’s become even more of a…

Think before you tweet

Last night I think many people in the UK were surprised to see news rolling in of an attempted military coup in Turkey. Fast forward to this morning and the first few details of that story are trickling in, with the coup apparently having failed and with at least 192 dead (47 of them civilians)….

Parting blows

A couple of interesting appointments this week for Theresa May’s new cabinet. BoJo to the Foreign Office was undoubtedly the biggest surprise of them all, but what’s been going on since then? Well yesterday we saw the first few appointments to junior ministerial posts, but for people to come in, we need some people to…