That’s a bit embarrassing. There you are, the personnel are appointed and your team is ready to go. And then the Labour leader spoils it by defying expectations, winning extra seats, throwing the Tories into their most wretched state for 20 years and surges ahead with poll leads last seen since before the Iraq War. […]
What Chuka Umunna’s amendment showed us
Jul 4th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.“We will scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit White Paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union – which are essential for maintaining industries, jobs and businesses in Britain. Labour will always put jobs and the economy first.” There you […]
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The end of Progress?
Jul 2nd, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Consolidating Corbynism involves the transformation of the Labour Party from a vote-catching bureaucracy into a movement capable of winning power by prosecuting its class interests. This in mind, the decision of Lord Sainsbury to pull funding from Progress shows, if you like, some progress towards this goal. Needless to say this, which was apparently announced […]
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The alt-left: A critical appreciation
Jun 27th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Among the big winners of the general election are the wave of new blogs collectively dubbed the “alt-left”. You know who I’m talking about. The Canary, Skwawkbox, Novara, Evolve Politics and Another Angry Voice have been singled out by the mainstream as the authentic voices of the new socialism that has seized hold of the […]
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Corbynism and the middle class
Jun 26th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.You have your hot takes, and you have your duff takes. There’s little doubt which category Daniel Allington’s latest lazy missive on Corbynism and the Labour Party falls into. His piece looks at the some features of Labour’s electoral performance that should be a cause of concern: that ethnically homogeneous (white) working class voters with […]
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Why far-right terrorism is on the rise
Jun 22nd, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.And here we are again. Another day, another terror attack with one dead and eight others injured. Though, on this occasion it’s definitely not Islamist-inspired. According to witnessesthe man who rammed worshippers leaving Finsbury Park Mosque screamed “Kill me, kill me, I want to kill all Muslims”. It’s to the credit of the traumatised crowd […]
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Can Theresa May survive?
Jun 21st, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Theresa May is determined to grab the worst Prime Minister ever crown from her predecessor, at least if her incompetence over the Grenfell tragedy is anything to go by. Her initial visit to the site to meet emergency service workers but pointedly not surviving residents was incredibly cold, and incredibly damaging. For millions, May’s behaviour […]
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The Grenfell tragedy is class war
Jun 19th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.The victims of yesterday’s fire at the Grenfell tower in north Kensington are casualties of the class war. There is no other frame, no other explanation that can convincingly thread together the answers to questions about how this unnecessary and entirely avoidable tragedy happened, and why it was allowed to happen.
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Labour and 21st century class politics
Jun 14th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.It’s taken me almost a week to write about Labour’s result, that’s how shocked I was. Just as that exit poll plunged millions of Labour supporters into gloomy depression in 2015, the one from last Thursday was an occasion of such jubilation that it will live on in the party’s collective memory forever. I know […]
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Why did so many pundits get the general election wrong?
Jun 11th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.What an amazing night. We’d had hints from the YouGov and Survation polls that things were going to be close, but even those who allowed a few meagre rays of hope into their hearts were haunted by the memories of so many times the pollsters were wrong. And not forgetting that a good chunk of […]
