Saturday Night Music Club
Welcome to the first edition of Saturday Night Music Club, which will become a regular feature of Dave’s Part if it finds with any popularity at all. Given that a fair proportion of my known readership are fully paid-up music bores, the idea is to take a weekly break from the depressing state of British [...]
How leftwing was Tony Blair as a student?
Blogging will be light this weekend and next, as I am doing a course on mathematics for economists at Birkbeck. I haven’t touched a maths book since scraping the minimum O-level pass thirty years ago, and they reckon that by next Sunday I’ll be able to do calculus. We shall see. As of now, I [...]
Turner quizzed in cash for honours probe
Ruth Turner – Blair’s director of government relations – is the latest New Labourite to have been questioned by police in connection with the cash for honours probe. I don’t know a lot about this woman, who only got involved in Labour financing after I finished my book on the subject. So I’d be grateful [...]
Friday open thread
After the relative success of last week’s experiment, I thought I’d have another bash at a Friday open thread. The suggested theme is impressions of the Labour Party conference, with anecdotes from attendees especially welcome. But you, dear readers, have the floor. And yes, there will be posts from yours truly later in the day. [...]
Cruddas blog update
Labour deputy leadership hopeful Jon Cruddas hasn’t really entered into the cut and thrust of this newfangled blogging malarkey. In the two days since his campaign blog has been available online, we have yet to see a second post or indeed a second comment. New Labour blogger Jo Salmon – who appears to be one [...]
Talking of new political parties
For Captain Sensible, it was all so easy. He just found sponsorship from a crisp manufacturer and went ahead with the launch of Britain’s newest political organisation. If only life was that simple for the far left. After writing the post below, I wondered what the hell the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party – [...]
Captain Sensible launches new political party
One Saturday night in late 1976, a long-haired, flare wearing teenage Led Zep fan went to watch the Damned play a gig in Northampton. They were the first punk outfit ever to hit the town. That’s the sleeve of their debut album pictured on the left. Neat neat neat. After 20 minutes – yeah, the [...]
Aslef barred from Labour conference
If you needed (yet more) proof of the increasing distance between the New Labour and organised labour, it appears that a delegation from the train drivers’ union Aslef was refused entry to this week’s party conference in Manchester. Most of the mainstream media doesn’t find this newsworthy. The only report I’ve come across is a [...]
Jon Cruddas to run for Labour deputy
Jon Cruddas has this afternoon confirmed speculation that he going for the Labour number two job. Earlier posts on this blog suggest he has the support of some commenters as the acceptable face of soft leftism, after making some suitable ‘I’m disgruntled with Blairism’ type noises. True, he has some plus points. These include working [...]
Alex Callinicos: ‘Victory to (some of) the Resistance!’
Is the SWP’s top theoretician backtracking – albeit perhaps partially – on the party’s ‘Victory to the Resistance!’ line on Iraq? I only ask after seeing the latest edition of Iran Bulletin, which carries an interview on Middle East issues with Alex Callinicos. The Professor goes so far as to brand Al Zarqawi’s ‘Al Qae’da [...]
