Taking time out from hanging with Bono and advising Central Asian dictators on how best to spin repression and executions, His Blairness has condescended to return to British politics to tell us things. And there are two things on his mind: Brexit and the election result. To save you the trouble, I’ve read his essay so you don’t have to.
Boiling his argument down to its constituent parts, the first is the usual Brexit is bad and is a massive distraction from more pressing problems. Well, there’s no disagreement here. Brexit is bad, and one cannot deny that third country status outside of the single market and the customs union is going to cause major problems. That said, we shouldn’t just accept this situation. It’s the job of political leaders to act as educators and set forth a number of Brexit options, which could include an invitation for the EU to reform as a price of keeping our membership. According to some unspecified chats he’s had with the movers and the shakers, they want us to stay and are even willing to compromise on free movement. Continue reading →
Labour Party members can vote to elect two representatives to Labour’s Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC).
Some eighteen months have passed since the nightmare began for the teaching assistants of county Durham. In December 2015, Durham County Council (DCC) announced proposals to sack the county’s 2,700 teaching assistants (TAs) and re-employ the same staff on new contracts with pay cuts of up to 23 percent. Many Durham TAs had already suffered a £1,200 pay cut in 2012. The TAs’ heroic campaign of resistance in the past eighteen months has garnered much attention and admiration, in the region and beyond. Twice the campaign has brought the county council back to the negotiating table for protracted talks; twice the council has produced slightly modified proposals; twice those proposals have been rejected by a majority of unionised TAs. Their tireless campaign has been a model for grassroots organisation and resistance. 
