The Government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis has led to claims that the economic rule-book is being rewritten; that a Conservative Government has essentially rewritten the rules that have governed economic policy-making since 1979. The magic money tree has been found. There are even some courageous souls claiming that Sunak’s announcements of wage guarantees and […]
Category Archives: Political culture
The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has this evening announced that the Government will meet 80% of wage costs for workers to ensure that they keep their jobs during the coronavirus crisis. The package has already attracted criticism, because it does nothing for the self-employed and freelances. That point is well-made, but there is a deeper problem […]
I spent yesterday evening listening to a speech by the philosopher A C Grayling at a meeting in Bath, organised by Bath for Europe, on the subject of rejoining the EU (unfortunately I had to leave before the Q and A in order to stand a fighting chance of getting a train back to Cardiff). […]
Yesterday’s announcement from Whitehall that HS2 would proceed – at an estimated cost now of £100bn, a figure that seems likely to rise substantially – has opened a wide fault-line about the future of Wales and Welsh devolution. As Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards argues persuasively in a piece in Nation Cymru, the issues for […]
Leaving the Labour Party is not easy; nearly a year after the event, you still follow the debates, discuss things with your former comrades, still feel a certain emotional pull. The Labour Party is far too much like a family – admittedly one, to misquote Orwell, with the wrong members in control – for its […]
For those of us in the movement to remain in the EU, this has been a grim few days. It appears inevitable that we will leave the EU on 31st January – and lose our freedom of movement, so many of our rights as citizens, our jobs and services. But, along the way, we did […]
The General Election that will take place on 12th December is the most important in modern British history. It is an election that will decide not just whether the UK leaves the European Union – and hence whether the Brexit project, a project of the far Right that aims to embed austerity, succeds: it is […]
Last night, the BBC’s Question Time was broadcast from Cardiff. Events leading up to the programme – as well as the programme itself – give rise to further questions about audience selection; an issue that has given rise to considerable concern over a long period. Inevitably, Brexit and the prorogation of Parliament were issues on […]
After yesterday’s controversial – and disputed – Labour Conference vote not to back remaining in the EU, numerous figures from Welsh Labour, including its leader Mark Drakeford, reminded us that Welsh Labour and the Government it forms are committed to campaigning to remain in the EU However, there are a number of reasons why that […]
In an incident at Whipps Cross Hospital in East London this morning, Boris Johnson was confronted by an angry father of a sick child who argued that the NHS had been destroyed by successive governments – and criticised him for mounting a publicity stunt. Johnson replied “there are no press here” – despite the fact […]
Notes from a Broken Society 