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

  • Pawel Urbanski
    Strong argument, and I agree with the direction. A couple of thoughts from someone who runs small shops. For me, deadweight loss is not a foreign concept. It is...
  • Jeff
    Jana 6th Nov '26 - 6:23pm: Meanwhile, Germany was at 4.2% in June 2016, and now sits at 6.4%. And expected to rise further… ‘German emp...
  • Nonconformistradical
    @Jana Not all of them could be deported. Some may be going through legal proceedings and some countries do not take their nationals back. https://www.depo...
  • Jana
    “ Who will you be deporting, how many and to where?” How about the 10,000 foreign nationals currently incarcerated in England and Wales? I assume that...
  • Jana
    The unemployment rate in the UK in June 2016 was 4.9%. It is now 4.7%. Meanwhile, Germany was at 4.2% in June 2016, and now sits at 6.4%....