It goes without saying that the North East is a Labour stronghold, and it has been this way for as long as anyone can remember. Up north the party is very much a religion; it is respected, celebrated and adored… but never questioned. Due to this of this it has become apparent over the years that the North East electorate […]
With Greece having thrown down the gauntlet to its creditors at the tail end of last week, the stage is set for a default on their IMF debts. Whether they default on payments due to other creditors remains to be seen, and whether or not they will remain a part of the Euro is also unclear. Indeed, a departure from the […]
Buried among the videos of being abused by his audience, Russell Brand’s speech at Saturday’s anti-austerity protests contained a bizarre quote. During a diatribe about out-of-touch elites, the Forgetting Sarah Marshall star practically boasted: “I am personally a product of the welfare state, not least because I signed on for eight years while I learned to be a comedian, so […]
Today’s Israel is a vibrant, cosmopolitan and forward-thinking democracy. As the forces of Islamic extremism wreak havoc on its neighbours, Israel deserves, and needs, our support. Two weeks ago, dozens of rainbow flags fluttered along Tel Aviv’s spectacular sea front. On 12 June, over 100,000 people gathered in the city to celebrate Asia’s largest gay pride event. It would be […]
In 2004 the Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah declared “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Gaza based Hamas soon went on to suggest homosexuality should be punishable by death. Not a particularly nice bunch, eh? You’d think that. Unless of course you were the veteran Labour MP for Islington […]
As the debate over the Hunting Ban resurfaces following David Cameron’s pledge to offer a free vote on the issue , anti- Tory agitators have been quick to hijack the mood. Following an online poll to debate the issue on Facebook, mixed messages of both support for the repeal and constructive comments from those against, quickly transcended into vile anti- Cameron […]
While we’re busy enjoying the first majority Conservative government for nearly two decades it can be easy to forget the previous five years of being beholden to the Lib Dems. There are always small reminders, however, of the unwelcome legacy that they left behind. One of the most egregious of these saw the party shoehorn an amendment into the Consumer […]
If eurosceptics of the better-off-out variety are going to win the EU referendum in 2017, then they are going to need to decide on an over-arching core message. What follows are a few ideas, probably better described as intuitions that I believe the “Out” campaign need to take note of when they determine that message. I’m going to start by […]
If there is one truth about the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is that things aren’t as black and white as some would like them to be. Both Israelis and Palestinians have an equal claim to a land that was successively dominated by Jews, Christians and Arabs throughout history. Groups on all sides put forward alternative arguments to justify their right to different […]
This year to date has proven to be a nightmare year for opinion polling companies across Europe. The Scottish Referendum in September 2014 turned out to be difficult to predict, although opinion polling companies such as YouGov came close to predicting the final outcome. The recent Israeli election, combined with the recent General Elections in both the United Kingdom […]
