“This is the new extinction and we are half way through it. We are in terrible, terrible trouble and the longer we wait to do something about it the worse it is going to get.” Sir David Attenborough I want to weep. The...

A new politics of friendship Oh no! Just when Keir Starmer should be rebuilding parliamentary friendships he goes and picks a fight with them. And the crime of these Labour rebels? – defending disabled people from...

It is hard to understand the self-destruct buttons Labour seems intent on pressing at the moment. I don’t blame loyalists for springing to the defence of Keir Starmer’s lukewarm leadership. It is what you do when the...

Cautionary warnings for a Labour government There’s always a price to be paid for failing to learn the lessons of history. For today’s Labour government, the danger lies in repeating the follies that went into New...

  Do not underestimate the scale of the democratic crisis facing Britain. Don’t kid yourselves either that it isn’t going to get a lot, lot worse. Brexit opened up wounds that will not easily heal. Mythical claims...

Reading ‘The Blair Supremacy’ is like sitting alongside a skilled forensic scientist as they dissect the multi-layered elements...

In these scary times it is hard to think much beyond the tragedy that is Ukraine. Bombed hospitals sit badly in anyone’s books. Flood tides of refugees shame us all. But if any good is to be salvaged it must come from a...

I hear that in New York At the corner of 26th street and Broadway A man stands every evening during the winter months And gets beds for the homeless there By appealing to passers-by. … A few people have a bed for the...

a search for post-fantasy politics Few people would ever mistake former Tory Health Minister, Matt Hancock for Keanu Reeves. However, his involvement in the ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here’ TV series has become...

COP28 has been a retreat from nativity into pantomime. For the real world, it drifted closer to tragedy. As the deadline approached, climate activists held their breath but fossil lobbyists held the pursestrings. A host...