I boycotted the Qatar World Cup. It was a small and meaningless gesture, but nonetheless one I wanted to make. I was surprised, though, when at a friend’s party I mentioned this to a stranger. He was furious, and raged at me about my ‘little moral stand’, done only to make myself look good – […]
On my Christmas trip back to my home town of Nottingham, I found my remaining school friends firmly established with young families, mortgages and careers in bloom. We’re also hardly young any more: My group are the oldest millennials and are entering middle age. And yet despite having accumulated all these symbolic markers of adulthood, […]
On a recent trip to Germany, I made use of the €9-Euro-Ticket, a one-off ticket giving you access to all regional transport for a whole month. A fabulous idea, well worthy of adoption in the UK, I thought. I was surprised to learn, however, that it is opposed by the German Finance Minister himself, who fears that […]
‘A Labour Council!’ Neil Kinnock’s iconic flaying of the Militant-led Liverpool council has become part of the party’s all-time highlights reel, a crucial moment when the party broke confidently with its far left. Kinnock’s speech brought Tony Benn to tears; delegates left the hall; Dennis Skinner sat in stony silence. Fast-forward 36 years and some in […]
Attending the recent Labour leadership hustings of the Jewish Labour Movement was a surreal experience. All four candidates took turns to issue condemnations of the anti-Semitism within the party, with varying degrees of intensity, while at the same time making absolutely sure not to mention the current Labour leader and his relation to the issue. […]
Nobody would really contest the premise that thinking hard about politics can lead people to very different conclusions. The works of, say, Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill articulate very different visions of politics and indeed humanity, but no-one could claim that this was due to them failing to consider their subject sufficiently. You can […]
