If there are seminal moments in politics, Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at the 2018 Labour Conference will go down as one of then. This was when the planet took centre stage.
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Alan SimpsonEmbracing the Unthinkable
It wasn’t the 130 forest fires raging across the USA that got to me, nor the UK’s moorland fires, the torrential storms hitting Belfast with 2 months rain in 2 hours, the lightning strikes that took out ...
When the war is over
When I was a child there was a low wall not far from my nan's house. It was lined with the nobbled 'knuckles' of what had once been an iron-railing fence.
Labour’s ‘Maginot Line’ Moment
It was one of the biggest infrastructure projects in human history. For much of the 1930’s, and at a cost of 3.3bn francs, France built itself a 900-mile network of tunnels, underground bunkers...
Slowing the Flow: Facing the drift into climate crisis
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.” (Greek proverb) Britain has 5.5 million men, and 6.5 million women, who are of pensionable age.
And who shall I say is calling
The postman was late. My dog pooed in the street. Local schools face budget cuts. The Windrush generation have their citizenship rights threatened, and Terrorists are everywhere. And the link?…It’s all the...
‘More Time for Politics’ – a never ending tribute
It is 4 years since the death of my friend and mentor, Tony Benn. I could argue that he turns up in every article I write, but that's a poor substitute for the daily conversations into which he poured tea and optimism...
Dance me to the end of love – an economics for tomorrow.
It was a message to warm the heart; a daughter thanking the care worker who took the time to dance with her dementia-suffering dad at the end of each home visit.
Rage, a wage, and the machine
In a thought-provoking Guardian article – ‘As robots take our jobs, we need something else’ – George Monbiot argued that the the future for humanity lies in voluntary work...
Politics and the Vassal State: a game of two halves
You know a government is in trouble when it’s MPs start attacking each other with metaphors and acronyms. Gone are the days when MPs jousted with swords;
