It’s been a torrid time for UKIP since the referendum in June. And not in a good way. On no less than three occasions, the cause of the purple party’s discomforts have, ostensibly, centered upon the person of Steven Woolfe. There was the farce of the leadership campaign where, readers will recall, Woolfe demonstrated his lightning fast organising […]
The Return of Tony Blair
Oct 12th, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.You can’t keep a good man down. Or, depending on preferences, a bad stench always lingers. Yes, Saint Tony has pre-announced a possible comeback. Caught between the rock of ruinous Toryism and the hardplace “ultra-leftism” of the Labour Party, His Blairness has identified a yawning gap where the centre ground should be. We’ve been here many times before, including quite recently. […]
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Understanding Jeremy Corbyn’s Reshuffle
Oct 11th, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Groundhog Day. Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but hasn’t Labour just gone through a ruinous and utterly unnecessary leadership contest that saw the party leader reconfirmed in his position? Please tell me the spectacle of sundry MPs appearing on Sunday politics television playing the unity card and positioning themselves as the paragons of such wasn’t […]
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Meet the new Chancellor, same as the old Chancellor
Oct 5th, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.“Call me Philip” Hammond didn’t apply smug factor 50 before his speech to Tory party conference, but he didn’t need to. Beneath the boring exterior and the truly, truly awful jokes is a politician whose programme is little different to his unlamented predecessor’s. Yes, in tune with his boss’s whole nation conservatism, Hammond has woken up […]
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Theresa May: Brexit means Wrexit
Oct 4th, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.If politics is war by less violent, constitutional means, it follows that truth fares no better in the peaceful competition between interests. This is especially the case when politics is staking out new territory. If one can define what a problem or challenge is, your solutions, such as they are, have a certain credibility from […]
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Tory Cynicism and the Work Capability Assessment
Oct 3rd, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.When I used to write letters to ministers for a living, it struck me that Damian Green was relatively decent. Well, if you ignore the appalling voting record, the missives we got back from the civil servant who scribbled his letters in immigration suggested he was a reasonable bloke, albeit one hemmed in by the politics […]
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Theresa May and the Boundary Review
Sep 15th, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.And just like that my constituency disappears. Wrapping like a skeewiff cummerbund around the svelte middle of the Potteries, Stoke-on-Trent Central stretches from a hint of countryside up Stockton Brook way, and snugly grips Baddeley Green, Abbey Hulton, and Bentilee. It takes in Hanley which, confusingly for outsiders, is Stoke’s city centre (not Stoke town […]
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Why I switched to Corbyn in this year’s leadership election
Sep 12th, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.In last year’s Labour leadership contest and after much shilly-shallying, my vote went to Yvette Cooper. This year there was no hesitation: I duly ticked the box for Jeremy Corbyn. The passage from the poster woman for “sensible” managerial politics to Corbynism might be puzzling for some, so here are my reasons. First off, it’s […]
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Why the establishment doesn’t get Corbynism
Aug 30th, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Spare a thought for the poor hacks paid to write about the Labour Party. Your job is to throw down boiler plate with a semi-original angle, while making a conscious effort not think about it unless you’re employed for that express purpose. Making matters trickier is that last year’s silly season saw every seam strip […]
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Reluctant Corbynism, or why people are switching to Jeremy
Aug 21st, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.I’m going to tell you a story. A friend of my went for a selection in an ostensibly safe constituency. The long and short listing exercise was observed, and my comrade made it to the final three. Not wanting to mess about, the prospective prospective parliamentary candidate got the members’ details and visited the first […]
