Tag Archives: new politics

Mark Valladares

Is being purist consistent with building majorities for change?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 18th February 2019 - 8:09 pm

I’ve been vaguely following the debate triggered by today’s launch of The Independent Group, and I have to admit to a tinge of despair. The competing stances of “we look forward to working with them” and “they’re not proper liberals and we shouldn’t touch them with a bargepole” are hardly unexpected, and there are people that I respect on both sides.

But, of course, I’m a bureaucrat, inherently cautious, and I’m older and wiser than I once was. So I find myself wondering, what is it we want, and how can this help us to get it?

Think of it as being …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 27 Comments
Ewan Hoyle

Desperate times call for despairing PR measures

By Ewan Hoyle | Mon 24th September 2018 - 12:30 pm

As the UK stares down the barrel of Brexit, and after a Liberal Democrat conference which didn’t inspire any anticipation of an impending poll surge, the Liberal Democrats need to present a truly radical offering.

The state of UK politics is desperate. The Conservatives are incompetently led, and with eccentric right-wingers lying in wait to add their own special layers of incompetence when May eventually falls.

The Labour party are likewise incompetently led, with no immediate prospect of that situation being resolved either.

What should fill us all with foreboding is that these parties’ internal democracies have evolved to a point where they …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 130 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • paul barker
    In other news, Reform look close to slipping into third place & We seem to have moved ahead of The Greens....
  • Simon McGrath
    Excellent - and we have to accept that this can only be funded by tax rises....
  • Mick Taylor
    @Jeff clearly presents the case of the rich against them paying taxes at all. It is , of course, complete and utter bullshit, but it is pushed every day by the ...
  • Peter Davies
    Compulsory voting would provide a big boost for those of us who appear at the top of the ballot paper....
  • Steve Trevethan
    Thank you for a most relevant article on the vulnerabilities of our alleged "Democracy"! Might ignorance, both passive and imposed/structural, be a signific...