The government’s educational omnishambles is stealing all the headlines at the moment. It pushes political incompetence to new limits. But behind the debacle lies a bigger crime. Boris Johnson is killing parliamentary...

Robin Hood Dies: the legend lives on As news hits the press about the imminent demise of Nottingham’s Robin Hood Energy company (RHE), I took a look at the plinth in front of St Mary’s church in the middle of Nottingham...

Tipping or turning: the choice is still ours We are in a bad place; a really bad place. The IMF predicts that the Covid pandemic will shrink the global economy by 5% this year, with a cumulative loss of around $9...

(Freedom and Democracy) Across the world, sports men and women have been ‘taking the knee’ in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. What troubles me is the prospect of this becoming a trivialised gesture, wrapped...

The images of motorway tailbacks, even before Britain’s lockdown period officially loosened, brought two things home to me. The first was that, without clear leadership, crises always take you perilously close to...

Labour’s Green New Deal faces a torrid credibility test. The world, post-Covid, will be nothing like the one preceding it. There will be no ‘V’ shaped economic recovery. Britain will struggle to avoid further economic...

The Portal: another world is possible “A sense of cosmic specialness is no guarantee of good stewardship.”  David Wallace-Wells “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their...

“Everything we do during and after this crisis must be with a strong focus on building more equal, inclusive and sustainable economies and societies that are more resilient in the face of pandemics, climate...

Escaping today, rethinking tomorrow Welcome to ghost-town Britain, a land none of us were prepared for. Barely 3 months ago, you’d have ridiculed anyone suggesting we’d be tuning in to the daily death count...

Coronavirus: A Very British Cull The nation is at war. Peacetime production has slumped, foreign travel collapsed, casualties rise. In every part of the country, people anxiously worry about how to avoid the enemy. This...

It didn't have to be coronavirus. It didn't have to be Storm Ciara (or Dennis, or Jorge). The delusions of neoliberalism stand at the edge of an implosion just waiting to happen. But, as with the Emperor's New Clothes...

Where does Labour go now? Parliament starts the new decade with Labour still in a state of grief…and anger…about its crushing election defeat. It’s a good place to start. If we’re brutally...

At a time riven by contradictions and confusion, it is important to celebrate what’s worth celebrating. Labour’s pre-manifesto pledges – to build only zero-carbon homes from 2022, and to make 27...

Politics beyond Brexit Brexit is a constitutional crisis. Climate is an existential one. It’s important to get that clear before diving into my childhood affection for Peanuts cartoons. One of my all time...