Gordon Brown and constitutional reform
Last week I attended an academic seminar to discuss the EU reform treaty. During the discussion, it was mentioned that Britain did not have a written constitution. Most of those in the room, being overseas students, were literally aghast. To them, the very idea was inconceivable. This country is one of only a handful in [...]
Tony Woodley’s attack on Blairism
Good speech from Tony Woodley – joint general secretary of Unite, pictured left – at the merged union’s conference in Brighton today. It included attacks on the record of Labour under Tony Blair, and a swipe at Gordon Brown’s appointment of non-Labour union-basher Sir Digby Jones as trade minister. And here’s the finely-crafted peroration: “For [...]
Socialist ideas and the post-Thatcherite consensus
If the first few days of the Brown government have demonstrated anything, they have underlined just how far British politics has become deideologised, as party loyalties increasingly blur under an embryonic national government. No longer do the mainstream parties fight on the basis of competing visions for society, even to the limited extent that they [...]
