On Friday Vince Cable is due to give a set piece speech. Given that a week is a long time in politics the speech could, presumably, go through several revisions between now and then. But that hasn’t stopped people speculating, and unnamed individuals briefing, that Uncle Vince is going […]
So a snap General Election it is then. The stars are surely aligned for substantial Conservative gains. They appear to be polling double the vote share of the Labour party at the moment. That would deliver a thumping majority. The Commentariat has already expended plenty of effort over […]
You don’t have to be one of those fancy poststructuralists or a dyed-in-the-wool discourse analyst to find the narratives around Brexit fascinating. But it probably helps. Much discursive work was done in advance of the Referendum vote to obscure the issues – to promise in vague terms that […]
The way Theresa May has gone about co-opting the EU Referendum result to serve her own political ends is audacious. The construction of the referendum outcome as being a mandate to pursue the harshest of hard Brexits is utterly without justification. Its construction as a mandate to give […]
I’ve been thinking about possible scenarios for the future following the Brexit vote. None of them looks particularly appetising. Anyone concerned about the risk that the discontents driving much of the Leave vote might take more violent form, if expectations are not met, would be right to be […]
Like many others, I’ve been mesmerised by the news since last Thursday’s narrow referendum win for Leave. The pace of events has been extraordinary. You feel like if you nip to the shops for an hour it is almost guaranteed that you’ll miss some further seismic political event […]
Last week a tweet by the estimable Stephen Tall crossed my timeline. The tweet pointed to his blogpost The Economist is right. Liberalism is winning. Which could be bad news for the Lib Dems in 2020. That immediately piqued my interest. After all, it is axiomatic, as all […]
Last Tuesday I had a curry with friends, including a good friend who is over from Greece. The conversation touched on the rise of UKIP following recent local elections and the references to swivel-eyed lunacy among the Tory grassroots. My friend gave some flavour of the way in […]
A month ago I suggested that the blue-tinged contingent of the Government wasn’t averse to a bit of constitutional vandalism when it suited their purpose. The principal trigger for that observation was a public pronouncement from Theresa May. She wasn’t happy that some judges had failed to toe […]
Yesterday at the New Statesman David Allen Green finished a piece on the Vicky Pryce case and the importance of juries with a broader reflection on the British constitution. At its core is the importance of balance and complementary strengths. The system may have evolved incrementally rather than […]
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