I don’t know about you, but I am sick of the political narrative being dominated by the far right and I am sick of this government allowing Reform UK to colour or even, seemingly, dictate policy. The Overton window has been pushed so far to the right by the client media and the (historically) main […]
Former Labour MP Tom Watson wrote a detailed analysis of the result of the February 26, 2026 by-election in Gorton and Denton, titled ‘A Party can lose and still learn nothing’, which really needed a reply. I agree with Watson that letting Andy Burnham stand would have risked Labour losing the by-election and then losing […]
Dear Anna I have long been disgusted by the indisputable fact that South West Water wilfully and regularly dumps sewage as a profitable policy. I was again reminded of this as I watched the TV drama ‘Dirty Business’, and the scale of it is even worse than I ever imagined. SWW are not only committing […]
Politically speaking, I am an uncomfortable hybrid, something between an ostrich and an idiot savant. I don’t watch the news for daily, hourly tidbits of frustration and terror. I don’t know each incident comprising the ongoing catastrophe that is Trump’s madness, but I know what’s going on. I don’t need endless examples: in fact, I’d […]
The government’s Representation of the People Bill, introduced on 12 February, has been hailed as the biggest expansion of democratic participation in a generation. Cleaner political finance rules and automated voter registration are welcome reforms which will strengthen election integrity and make participation in elections easier. But we should be honest about what this Bill […]
Dear Anna [Gelderd] The Gorton and Denton by-election results clearly show that the current Labour stance of trying to ape Reform is not wanted by the electorate. Labour needs to change course, start taxing the rich, massively invest in public services and bring previously privatised aspects of public utilities back into public ownership. We don’t […]
One of the most memorable American films I have seen, albeit many years ago, was Mississippi Burning (1988). Its producer was Frederick Zollo, and no, he is no relative of mine, so far as I know, but was married to Barbara Broccoli, famous for some of the Bond films. Mississippi Burning is based loosely on […]
Nearly ten years after the referendum, the numbers are in. And they’re devastating. The economic carnage Multiple independent studies published in 2025 have reached the same brutal conclusion: By 2025, Brexit has reduced UK GDP by 6 to 8 per cent. That’s £240bn per year that our economy has lost. Not “might lose.” HAS LOST. […]
Easily missed in the sea of political chaos that is Westminster today, there is a diamond in the rough: Britain actually has positive elections legislation on the docket in Parliament. Imagine that. I’ll tell you what I like about the Representation of the People Bill (RPB, formerly referred to as the Elections Bill) – and why, given […]
Let me tell you what’s happening in Germany right now – and why the UK should be paying very close attention. In Germany: The AfD is under heavy surveillance. In May 2025, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency – the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) – officially classified the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as a “confirmed right-wing extremist […]
If you’ve been anywhere near any right-leaning news sources this week, you’ll have no doubt seen reports of Britain’s countryside being “too white” or “racist”. I did a Google news search for the terms “countryside” and “diversity”, and here are 4 days’ worth of news articles covering this story: You’d be forgiven for thinking that there […]
A pedestrianised small-town high street in the southwest of England on a Friday or Saturday morning. Each of our group begins our conversations in different ways, but mine usually go something like this. Me: Would you like to stop for a quick chat? Passer-by: What’s it about? Is this a political party? (Why is this […]
Let me say at the beginning that I am not a fan of Keir Starmer’s administration. It has all too often been clumsy and muddled, and it needs a course in communication skills. However, it has understood and accepted one absolutely basic fact of contemporary British life that both the Conservatives and Reform UK refuse […]
It’s no secret that the political right in Britain largely takes its cues from Donald Trump. They regurgitate MAGA’s culture-war talking points, recycle the same influencers and Roman-statue ‘X’ accounts, and – in Reform UK’s case – directly import disastrous schemes like Elon Musk’s DOGE. Trump says jump; they ask how high. So it’s not […]
Dear Editor, Trump’s every word, every garbled utterance is catapulted round the globe as though he were the oracle, he the saviour of the world. How did it come to be that this orange man-child can spew such hatred, instil such fear, and everyone stops to listen? I hope that we will be able to […]
My grandparents on my mother’s side were Geordies from the North East of England, born and bred, but on my father’s side were born in the Austro-Hungarian empire. My grandfather from Hungary and my grandmother from Austria, just off the Danube – Rembrandtstrasse – just a short walk from the University. Cultured and deeply integrated. […]
…and quicker than most of us thought it would. Trump wants Greenland. And he is prepared to blackmail any country that stands in his way. Of course, the claim that the USA needs Greenland for national security is nonsense. Under the 1951 Greenland Defence Treaty – which allowed the USA to have its base at […]
A journalist, without completing the checks, nor indeed any of the paperwork, was, to their astonishment, approved online for a job as an ICE agent anyway – intentionally demonstrating for their magazine that literally any unvetted person could be appointed. By implication also demonstrating any kind of racist, rapist, felon with a grudge or an […]
The Nazis relied on a set of post-hoc rationalisations after casual, sanctioned murders, that combined elements of legal manipulation, propaganda, and let’s call it, moral inversion. The aim wasn’t just to excuse violence, but to redefine it as lawful, necessary and virtuous. For the Night of the Long Knives, Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt argued that […]
On Tuesday Jan 6 2026, seven European leaders issued a joint statement on Greenland that reads like a masterclass in how democracies should respond to authoritarian overreach. Clear principles. Unified front. No hedging. But within hours, the White House responded by raising the prospect of military force to get their way. So much for bullies […]
It feels as though 2025 has been another tough, ugly year and worse than the last. Empowered by Trump, Musk and a large portion of the media, racism, misogyny, environmental destruction, fascism, cruelty and greed proudly strut the world stage, trampling the vulnerable and attempting to silence opposition. It is tempting to disngage from this […]
Here is part 2 of my “they’re cancelling Christmas” debunk. I will try and cover as many of the ludicrous rage bait claims as I can, so you have the facts to hand when your Facebook-indoctrinated relative brings up these myths over the festive period. In part 1, I debunked the claims that Tesco had renamed their plastic Christmas […]
A myth-busting explainer on Tesco trees, ‘renamed’ cakes, and the real purpose behind these manufactured panics. I vowed I wasn’t going to do a ‘they’re cancelling Christmas’ Substack after doing a quick Bluesky thread on it, and talking about it very briefly on James O’Brien’s LBC show. However, I’ve changed my mind for several reasons: So buckle up for your […]
Who is Christopher Harborne? Very little is publicly known about the reclusive, Thailand-based technology investor – except that he is now one of the biggest political donors in British history. His record £9m donation to Reform UK this September is only the latest in a long trail of donations to right-wing populists. Harborne previously poured more […]
The Armada Way tree-felling fiasco has certainly put Plymouth on the map. It was a disaster, not just for Plymouth’s canopy cover, but for our city’s reputation and the relationship between the public and the local authority, which wasn’t great to begin with. It was described as “environmental vandalism” by many, resulting in the then […]
A few weeks ago, a Guardian article with this title described how a Spanish town took a very significant decision over the treatment of its migrants. But first, some background. The UK is not the only target destination for migrants seeking a safer or a more prosperous life; in fact, Spain receives considerably more migrants […]
It was Carl von Clausewitz, the early nineteenth century Prussian general, who said: “War is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means”. In other words, if a country goes to war, it should do so with a clear political objective, and the war itself should be fought in such a manner as to […]
We interviewed organiser Simon Oldridge ahead of this crucial event on 27 November, and now we want to share Simon’s post giving us some more insights into the scale of the operation and the help he was given to pull it off. We’ve had to unlink the many names, but you can google them easily […]
Backbench rebels have made this a better budget than it would have been, but they have more to do to prevent the UK having the Biden experience Labour made several manifesto promises, none more important than tackling the cost-of-living crisis and rebuilding the NHS. And the Chancellor said last week, “Working families will be at the front […]
More than two hundred people packed the Civic Hall in Totnes to hear an outstanding line-up of panellists discuss the links between democratic systems and climate [and social] justice. George Monbiot, Klina Jordan, Anthea Simmons and Jonathon Porritt, all well-known for their work in different areas of political and environmental campaigning and journalism, started the […]