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Despite all the amputations: Labour’s general election prospects
ONE-LEGGED Lithuanian lesbians, David Cameron joked in 2007, should not be in receipt of Arts Council grants. On what grounds they might be deemed intrinsically more or less deserving than heterosexual Estonian bipeds, he didn’t say. But clearly the Old...
Do the Tories 'champion gay equality'?
‘CONSERVATIVES champion gay equality,’ according to the title of a speech Tory frontbencher Nick Herbert will deliver in Washington today. If he was being entirely honest, he would add the words ‘but only after Labour actually delivered it and didn’t...
So what if he’s a Holocaust denier? At least he’s not gay
ANY RELIGIOUS tradition sufficiently Froot Loop to ordain Sinead O’Connor as a Bishop just has to be a couple of beads short of a full rosary. Nothing compares 2 that, you could say. Nevertheless, I have to admit that the...
Pope Benedict XVI and UK equality law
THERE’S an old joke about the Pope’s attitude to contraception, attributed variously to Irish comedian Dave Allen or the Italian-American community at large. The punchline runs: ‘If he doesn’t play the game, he shouldn’t try to make the rules.’ I...
The brazen cheek of brazen elitism
FOR AN Old Etonian to promise a ‘brazenly elitist’ approach to state education – as Tory leader David Cameron has done this week - is nothing if not brazenly cheeky. It’s a nice catchphrase of course, chiming as it does...
Ahmadinejad’s ‘mature democracy’: reply to Andy Newman
HOW would you define a ‘mature democracy’? Would a government that restricts the right to stand in elections solely to candidates approved in advance, and even then regularly stuffs ballot boxes, deserve the designation in your book? What if you...
The killings of Katie Summers and Tulay Goren
SEXUAL jealousy, personal insecurity, the pain of rejection, mental illness, twisted religious belief, and oh so many other reasons few of us could ever begin to comprehend; men murder women in a huge range of circumstances, as illustrated by two...
Sexed up: the vindication of Andrew Gilligan
NOW the Chilcot Inquiry is in full swing, cast your mind back to the Hutton Inquiry into the suicide of Dr David Kelly in 2003. Remember that day six years ago, when BBC Radio 4’s defence correspondent was subjected to...
Dave's easy guide to feminism & stuff
IS THE historical materialist analysis of women’s oppression necessarily counterposed to patriarchy theory? That – once upon a time, anyway – was a frequently successful chat up line, especially when aimed at chicks on the Hackney squatter circuit, circa 1981....
A question of Truss: victory to the Turnip Taliban
EXTRAMARITAL legovers remain an activity of longstanding popularity, even if they do try to hush it up in places Norfolk. I can illustrate this by an anecdote from my own family history. As far as I can work out from...
Pinochet and Polanski: even old men should face their past
WHAT happens when old men touch down in a foreign country and suddenly get hit with a writ for crimes committed decades ago? Consider, if you will, the contrasting cases of Augusto José Ramón Pinochet and Roman Raymond Polanski. The...
Gramsci for beginners, Melanie Phillips-style
SOMETIMES a particular combination of headline and author catches your eye and you just know where the article is going to go. So I must admit a certain sense of keen anticipation when I spotted the words ‘We were fools...
Daniel Hannan: building a base for proto-Poujadism
THE period of post-Thatcher consensus is not an era characterised by ideological politicians; both the hard left and the hard right have long lacked a substantial figurehead of the intellectual depth and popular appeal once personified by the likes of...
Insults in politics
THERE are many of us for whom good looks are perhaps not our primary selling point on the dating market. So it was admittedly unchivalrous of Labour’s former West Lancashire council leader Alan Bullen to describe physically unprepossessing size 16...
Megrahi and Myra Hindley: who dies in jail?
THERE are prisoners, there are political prisoners and then there are politicised prisoners. In the latter category, we must place those whose crimes, real or alleged, attain such notoriety that the quotidian standards of the law are somehow suspended. Pull...
Edlington: sympathy for the Devil Brothers
IN ALL likelihood, the workmates and neighbours of two twentysomethings formerly known as Robert Thompson and Jon Venables do not realise with whom they are associating. But as ten year old boys in 1993, these two young men, playing truant...
Dependency culture versus bonus culture
APPARENTLY there are at least 164 definitions of the word ‘culture’, according to one 1950s tome on anthropology that was well-known in its day. But in current popular British usage, the term conjurs up a notion of an internally coherent...
Advice for a young leftist
I WAS extremely flattered to get an email in this blog’s inbox last week from a young man of 19, asking my advice on getting involved with leftwing politics for the first time. He tells me that while he finds...
When Anglicans fall out like Trots
BEING A former Trotskyist, I still get a vicarious kick out of watching worldwide organisations knock seven shades out of each other, in vicious factional infighting over the correct application of a belief system largely incomprehensible to outsiders. Recent events...
Why free Pinochet but not Biggs?
WE OBVIOUSLY do not know what yardstick Jack Straw uses when deciding whether or not prisoners should be released on medical grounds, but the contrast between his rulings in the cases of Augusto Pinochet and Ronnie Biggs is certainly instructive....
Leftie men and the 'male beauty crisis'
TOM Paulin - the sixtysomething ex-Trot poet who features regularly on late night arty-farty telly slots - reportedly charged Newsnight Review £90 for having his hair dyed, on the grounds that a boy just has to look good for the...
RMT: in praise of the tube strike
ISN’T it compulsory to mention French air traffic controllers when writing a leader on industrial relations for a rightwing newspaper? I only ask after perusing the Daily Telegraph’s opinions on the RMT-led 48-hour tube strike that is currently causing comparatively...
Catholicism, child abuse and gay adoption
CATHOLICISM is strongly opposed to gay adoption, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor – until recently Archbishop of Westminster – proved especially keen on making sure that New Labour did not forget that fact. During the debate over the Sexual Orientation Regulations...
In praise of benefit fraud
ON JOBSEEKER’S, shacked up with the girlf, splitting the rent but still claiming full whack housing benefit? You could be looking at custodial, mate. The Department of Work and Pensions website warns: There are no exceptions. People who knowingly...
Sick note from Dave
(1) THE MORE observant of you will have noticed that I have not posted since last Wednesday. Sadly, I have been unwell, and indeed, sicknoted off work for the first time in more than a decade. But I now appear...
Edlington: when children try to murder children
THE TROUBLE with purpose-built towns is that once you take away the ‘purpose’ that constitutes the first part of the compound adjective, they really do not have much point. Such has been the fate of Edlington, a village founded purely...
Booze prices: Sir Liam Donaldson's flawed logic
I GET a regular full health screening at a Harley Street clinic – there’s a bit of a confession for a leftie – which annually sees me subjected to every type of health check known to medical science. Perk of...
Capitalism and the commodification of heterosexuality
BACK when I used to frequent strip joints, I didn’t see anything particularly wrong with being there. Given the ‘right on’ nature of the readership of this blog, I suppose I had better explain that point further. The thing is,...
Alfie, Chantelle and Maisie Roxanne: thoughts on free market morality
IN A limited sense, the rightwing commentariat are bang on the money; yes, the case of Alfie Patten, Chantelle Steadman and the daughter born of their one-off adolescent legover does tell us much about morality in Britain today. It’s just...
Come back Jeffrey Archer, all is forgiven
IF YOU are a life peer and you lie about knocking off a call girl in Shepherd Market, you might just find yourself doing time, albeit many years after the event. Prostitute the House of Lords itself, and you are...
Why exempt nationalised banks from public sector pay cap?
CALLING on bankers not to pocket giddying emoluments on the slightest pretext is much like counselling complete sexual continence and strict observance of government drink unit guidelines to a bunch of teenagers about to jet off on a Club 18-30...
Labour war on middle classes: let it rock
‘LABOUR war on middle classes’, proclaims the front page headline of the Daily Mail this morning. Sounds kinda serious, doesn’t it? Posterity will no doubt look back at the conflict that unexpectedly kicked off in early 2009 as one of...
Thatch nutcracker: no thanks, Santa
I NEVER did quite see it myself, but I am told there are those who find Margaret Thatcher sexually alluring. Jonathan Ross famously suggested that David Cameron was one of them, when he inquired as to whether visions of the...
Lads' mags and Labour: why Claire Curtis-Thomas won't win
LORD Mandelson – back when he was just plain Peter, and resolutely still in the closet – used to write a column for FHM. Given that this publication is known chiefly for its annual rundown of ‘the world’s 100 sexiest...
Shannon Matthews case: pure evil?
PURE EVIL. That’s how one senior police officer branded Karen Matthews, the woman who rigged the kidnap of her nine year old daughter Shannon in the hope of pocketing around £50,000 in reward money. Without exception this morning’s newspapers lay...
Speech: why Marxism is sexy again
This is a draft version of a speech I am due to give in the private room of a well-known London restaurant tomorrow, before an audience that will include a number of seriously rich but left-leaning businessmen, and perhaps even...
Sex for sale: prostitution, the market and the state
PROSTITUTION is still half-jokingly celebrated as the world’s oldest profession; in reality, it is not a profession of any description. Nobody in their right mind would willingly see their sister or their daughter go on the game. But it hardly...
Paul Dacre on the morality of shag & tell journalism
THE PROPOSITION that newspapers run with shag ‘n’ tell stories principally as a means to uphold family values and promote the moral betterment of the nation somehow – how can I put this? - fails completely to convince. Such limited...
New Labour and social mobility: room at the top?
THE standard case against redistributionist or egalitarian politics today is that the Britain of 2008 is more or less a meritocracy. Never mind if you’re old man’s a dustman and he wears a dustman’s hat; he probably made a killing...
Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand: yes, they should go
FUCKING a satanic slut is about par for the course when you get lucky in a dodgy Hackney boozer on a Saturday night. And I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing; I'm sure some of my most fondly-remembered...
Jack Straw and the prison system: some observations
I’D LOVE to qualify as the type of person Jack Straw once derided by the generic label of Hampstead liberals; the trouble is, I can only afford to live in Hackney. And there was me thinking that New Labour was...
The class politics of the Deripaska scandal
I FONDLY imagine that Russian oligarchs fit out their superyachts with all the restraint and taste so frequently displayed in the dress sense of the nubile Slavic blondes they tend to favour in the arm candy stakes. So it might...
Harriet Harman says the C word
Ever since its inception, New Labour has preferred resort to ever more tendentious circumlocution rather than mention of the basic and unchanged realities of Britain’s social structure. Listen to a standard speech from a Labour politician these days and you...
Sarah Palin: the British right learns to love again
It is always a bit icky watching middle age men fall head over heels with women that are way out of their league. But a sizeable number of those rightwing pundits whose hearts were broken by the defenestration of Margaret...
Max Mosley case: notes on Nazi hookers and press freedom
Human sexuality is a complex field, and let’s just say that we all have our little pecadillos. Fortunately for most of us, we are insufficiently prominent to see them make the front page splash of the News of the World....
50 Cent and Paul Dacre: corrupters of youth
Other than being the Big Swinging Dicks in their very different respective 'hoods, there might at first sight appear to be little in common between a rap superstar and the editor of the Daily Mail. But following on from a...
Matt Lucas-Kevin McGee split: the politics of gay marriage and gay divorce
New Labour has all too many faults, but lack of application on gay issues can hardly be numbered among them. Sure, I’m writing this as a straight man, and in the full awareness that many gay activists wouldn’t agree with...
Britain is in the grip of ...
Britain is in the grip of [insert scare story X, preferably utilising words like ‘crisis’ or ‘epidemic’]; one of the things they teach you at journo school is to avoid clichés like the plague, but sadly young hacks today so...
Bag carriers against Gordon Brown
All journalists hate slow news days, and bank holiday Mondays are often the slowest news days of the lot. Let’s be charitable and assume that this is why the Guardian led its politics coverage this morning with a potboiler...
Progressive politics, innit
Until relatively recently, standard British usage meant that describing someone as ‘a progressive’ was more or less the equivalent to branding them a communist fellow traveller. Not any more; we are all progressives now, it seems. Isn’t anybody willing...
Reflections on the non-revolution in France
ONE MINUTE French students were getting all uppity because of a ban on visitors of the opposite sex in university dorms; the next thing you know, ten million workers had taken over the factories and de Gaulle's semi-authoritarian state was...
Fightback Thursday: return of working class militancy?
Personally I’ll only believe that there is really an upturn in the class struggle at the point of production when Leicester Square is knee-deep in rubbish, at least a dozen bodies remain unburied, and the ghost of Red Robbo...
Bob Spink and the future of UKIP
David Cameron – in language that would get him immediately banned from some leftwing blogs – famously derided the UK Independence Party as ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’. Well, the stridently anti-Brussels neo-Poujadists in question have just secured a base...
The Communist Party of Great Britain and the far left
No far left groups were active in the small town in which I grew up in the 1970s. There was, however, a sizeable branch of the Communist Party of Great Britain. I even knew some of the people in...
Iran: neither Washington nor mosque
Only two parties contest the majority of seats in today’s parliamentary elections in Iran; voters face the tough call of whether to back the United Fundamentalist Front or the Inclusive Fundamentalist Coalition. It’s almost tempting to conclude that the...
Eliot Spitzer: in defence of Client 9
There are streets in London – some within easy walking distance of my flat – where a hand job reportedly comes cheaper than a packet of cigarettes; more than likely, there are streets like that in New York as well....
London elections: the far left case for a Labour vote
Unstinting Labour loyalist that I am, I will of course be backing Ken Livingstone in the London mayoral contest. I will also smilingly vote for whatever pack of chainstore-suited neoliberal Stepford Wives and ‘I speak your weight’ machines that...
God save the Queen
Silver Ring Thing is an evangelical Christian initiative that arm-twists adolescents into pledging to remain virgins until their wedding day. Some hope. Rampaging hormonal imbalances being what they are, most of them are merrily rutting away not too much...
Bellfield, Wright and Dixie: killing women for kicks
When a man murders a woman - or two women, or five women - simply to gratify some unimaginable sexual urge, what can the left say about his actions and about what should happen to him as a result? Despite...
How to help working class students
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock – in one of his better speeches - famously asked why he was the first Kinnock in a thousand generations of Kinnocks to get to university. That’s a sentiment with which a certain layer...
Should al Qaradawi be allowed into Britain?
I’ve tried listening to those on the left who repeatedly try to tell me that I should see the utterances of Yusuf al Qaradawi ‘in context’. I really, really have. But the man widely regarded as one of the...
After Ipswich: what should be done about prostitution?
The murder of five prostitutes in Ipswich in 2006 provided the commentariat with plenty of overtime; liberal responses concentrated on how sex work could be made safer, while conservatives demanded that it be suppressed or stamped out. As yet,...
Diana: death of a princess
I spent the August bank holiday weekend of 1997 on a dirty weekend in Paris. For fairly obvious reasons, then, I was somewhat oblivious to such trivialities as whatever major news events may have been taking place in the city....
Book review: 'From Anger to Apathy' by Mark Garnett
How did Britain get from the decade of punk rock, the Angry Brigade, the three-day week, Bennism, Grunwick, and the Winter of Discontent to these cursed times of Celebrity Big Brother, the lowest level of industrial militancy since records...
Pornography and advertising: spot the difference?
The radical left is divided in its attitudes to pornography, as it is to so much else. The debate essentially polarises people into one of two mutually exclusive positions. Some feminist opinion sees the commodification of sexuality as undesirable,...
The Lyrical Terrorist versus Sturmgeist89
Pity Samina Malik, the young woman who will live for the rest of her life with the consequences of a terrorism conviction simply for being a suburban shopgirl who committed her fantasies on the internet. Scribbling doggerel in praise...
When Trot groups implode
Even my seven-year-old realises that playing the 'it wasn't me, dad' card is a spectacularly dumb move if I actually catch her pulling her kid sister's hair. Not that Daddy's Little Princesses fight very often, you understand. They are...
Saudi Arabia: petrotheocracy on the brink of breakdown
Five years ago I spent several weeks on a journalistic assignment in Saudi Arabia. The vile nature of the theocratic dictatorship was readily apparent. With King Abdullah currently on a state visit to Britain, I’m reproducing an article I wrote...
Afghanistan: no good options left
After almost 200 years as a plaything for the ambitions of the three strongest superpowers ever seen in history, attribution of blame for the hell that is Afghanistan today depends on the historical timeframe one chooses to deploy. But...
Sunday blogging notes
(1) Bad news for Tan Shwe. Daddy's Little Princesses have unanimously declared themselves in favour of democracy in Burma. That's them in the picture, participating in yesterday's demonstration in London. Oh, the life of a red diaper baby. Incidentally,...
Graham Brady on the appeal of David Cameron
Conservative backbencher Graham Brady – the man who quit as Europe spokesman last May because he opposed party policy on grammar schools – reckons that his party’s leader isn’t going down well in Middle England. Brady argues: "The changes David...
The case for tougher drink-drive limits
As a non-driver, I am forced to the conclusion most motorists are not just criminals but serial offenders. They regularly lapse into illegality, talking on their mobiles while driving, exceeding the speed limit with gay abandon, and generally ignoring...
Tony Blair and feral media
After a decade of living by the mass media sword, Tony Blair - pictured left - is griping about dying by it. The media has become ‘a feral beast’ that hunts ‘in a pack’, he claims today in a...
New Labour, civil liberties and the war on terror
It can’t be that long before we run out of civil liberties for New Labour to crack down on. The three successive Blair administrations have effectively torn up the Geneva Convention on refugees, and repeatedly contravened the substance and spirit...
Tommy Sheridan: perjury inquiry
I’m now back in London following my long weekend in Edinburgh, where more than a little booze was knocked back with the Scottish comrades. Inevitably the pub talk centred on the local political situation, especially this story in the...
Lindsay German to challenge Ken Livingstone
Shock result from Monday's Respect selection meeting for 2008 London mayor and London Assembly candidates. Not. Here's a press release issued today. Anybody know the rest of the slate? Leader of the anti-war movement to stand for London Mayor Lindsey...
Guest post: French presidential elections
Andrew Coates is the only man in Britain who regards the term ‘Pabloite’ as a badge of honour rather than the most unspeakable insult Trot can offer unto Trot. The Ipswich-based Francophile is dead clever and speaks French and everyfing....
The real problem with Gordon Brown's pension policy
A wide swathe of the Establishment obviously no more relishes the prospect of a Gordon Brown government than the political left does. It’s almost enough to make you want to back him on grounds of class solidarity alone. After last...
Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and the left
Egyptians are today voting on a set of constitutional changes described by Amnesty International as marking the greatest erosion of human rights in that country for almost three decades. Or to put it more accurately, Egyptians are today not...
Terrorism risk in 2007
While we’re considering the possibilities for 2007, predictions don’t come on any higher authority than this: Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson - pictured - said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would...
Socialist Workers Party: international perspectives
The latest international perspectives document from the Socialist Workers' Party has been published on a French Trot online forum. It’s mostly pretty unexceptionable stuff, though I reckon predictions of a possible US invasion of Iran will prove wide of...
Trotskyist chat-up lines, part two
After the huge success of Saturday's post on Trot chat-up lines - inspired in large measure by a drinking session with the Stroppies, it should be said - it turns out that earlier this year the libertarian communists over at...
Top ten Trotskyist chat-up lines
Now that I don't need chat-up lines anymore, I am happy to share the secrets of past successes with younger leftie bloggers. Please note that what follows is objectively non-sexist and designed to be adapted from each according to...
Trotsky Vengaran: Uruguay's top punk band
I knew I couldn't be the only person in the world working towards an insidious fusion of Fourth Internationalism and punk rock. And I was right. Quite by chance, I have discovered that Uruguay's top punk band is an...
Thank you, Harry's Place
Dave's Part has experienced a huge jump in readership after switching to this new website. That is in large part down to a favourable mention on the best-read British pro-war left blog, Harry's Place. Thanks, comrade. Harry berates me...
Service announcements for regular readers
(1) The poll for the second-best leftwing blog in Britain is now closed. The clear winners are the Stroppatistas, on 30%. Congratulations, sisters. I was surprised at the strength of support for Lenin's Tomb, second on 26%. I suppose I'd...
The crisis of modern socialism - sorted
Several recent posts on this website have highlighted the seeming inability of all sections of the current UK left to modernise socialist politics. But what would a credible twenty-first century left reformism look like? Most socialist thinking remains stuck in...
The decline of local democracy
Local democracy has been under attack from successive governments – both Conservative and Labour – for more than two decades now. It’s reached the point now where the chief function of many councils is to vote on which private company...
Saturday Night Music Club:where are they now?
Coulda had class. Coulda been a contender. Well, maybe not. As a teenager, I was never a particularly good guitarist, to be honest. Indeed, I failed auditions for Adam and the Ants and Generation X. True. Of course, mostof the...
New Labour and the NHS: not safe in their hands
New Labour is set to implement the biggest round of hospital cuts and closures since the Tories took the axe to the NHS in the eighties, according to the pressure group London Health Emergency. The news comes on the day...
Sheridan's new party: launch statement
Purely for information purposes, here is the founding statement of the new party Tommy Sheridan - in alliance with the Socialist Workers' Party and the Socialist Party - is due to launch this weekend. An organisational motion follows. What about...
More on the Tommy Sheridan libel trial
Here's The Scotsman with the Sheridan libel trial latest: 'Sheridan 'had group sex in flat then four of us headed south to swingers' club' JOHN ROBERTSON 'THE Tommy Sheridan jury was told yesterday that the MSP enjoyed a session of...
Aids in Africa: Can Bono, Buffett and Gates provide the solution?
Forget about the fight against Aids in Africa. Effective immediately, this pressing task has been outsourced to Bono’s Project Red and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Mr Radio Friendly Unit Shifter himself, the two richest men in the world,...
Tommy Sheridan defamation case
Former Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan’s defamation action against the News of the World opened at the Court of Session in Edinburgh yesterday. From this account in the Daily Record – the Scottish equivalent of the Daily Mirror –...
Elsewhere in the blogosphere
Meanwhile, on other blogs … Will seems to have taken exception at the new array of bloggers and commenters at the once-great Harry’s Place: ‘Dear me. What a bunch of stupid or pompous or ignorant or, let's just use a...
Tommy Sheridan: open letter to SSP members
If I lived in Scotland, I would be a member of the Scottish Socialist Party. I don't, so I'm not. And although I try to keep up with SSP developments, I simply do not know enough to take a position...
Opus Dei versus Opus Gay
The usual Blairite argument against Trotskyists being members of the Labour Party is that their first loyalty lies with a secretive and conspiratorial organisation, with its own distinctive publications and extremist political positions. But somehow, membership of Opus Dei is...
Scolari and football revolutionary defeatism
The BBC website carries a profile of Luiz Felipe Scolari, the likely new England coach, which includes the following fascinating little snippet: 'Scolari is by nature remarkably open. He will hold court on such subjects as the fact that he...
Politics and punk rock
It’s 30 years on since the first Sex Pistols gig, and the BBC website does a round-up of reminiscences from the period, include Jean-Jacques Burnel from the Stranglers, Pauline Murray from Penetration, that bloke from Tenpole Tudor and Eddie...
Saudi Arabia, socialism and Islam
Today I took part in the anti-war demonstration in central London. It seems to have attracted relatively more mainstream peaceniks and rather fewer lefties and Islamists than similar marches in previous years. Nevertheless, I'll use the occasion as an opportunity...
Taking it on trust, part one
I'll be appearing on both Newsnight and The World Tonight this evening, talking about the New Labour 'cash for peerages' scandal. In today's twist to the soap opera, party treasurer and TGWU official Jack Dromey insists that he knew nothing...
Neoconservatism and the war on terror
American foreign policy is effectively being driven by a small and extremely rightwing clique of warmongers, known as the neoconservatives. Left to their mercies, the world faces war without end. At least, that’s received wisdom for much of the liberal...
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