London - Human nature in city form
London is a city of restaurants, cafes and bars. From the greasy spoon to that darling little place in Brixton, everyone has their own favourite places to share the breaking of bread — from Injera to sourdough. London is the cooks and the waiters and the bar staff. London is couples lingering over linguine, a business meeting over a bhuna or a novel and a nosh for one. When the “Eat out to help out” scheme was on, London was outside on the pavements doing our bit to eat socially whenever and wherever we could.
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what's the future of the Labour left?
In an exchange about the Labour Party recently I bemoaned the fact the Labour left had no competence and the Labour right no ideas. So far Keir Starmer’s approach has not been about new ideas, but about absolutely hammering home the competence message. It makes a very refreshing change.
The Labour left, at least the very public part of it, has not responded well to its defeat. None of the key “outriders” — those media activists who fought for Corbyn — has the gift of genuine self-criticism, so you get weak beer such as “Jeremy isn’t anti-Semitic but…” which is the closest most of them will get to acknowledging anything went wrong at all.
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Like Kelly Osborne, I know that gastric sleeve surgery isn't a 'cheat'
As I sit writing this, I am buzzing with the self-satisfied ache of having just finished a 12 mile hike. My legs hurt, but I’m hardly in agony. My shins aren’t burning as if someone is ironing them. My body isn’t flooding itself with chemicals to fight pain it simply can’t endure – chemicals that make me sweat and shake and lose blood sugar. That used to be the case when I tried to walk as far as the bus stop.
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Len McCluskey retires next year. What should his successor do?
I used to be a member of the union Unite. I signed up because I believe in the value of collectivism and, having done an internet search, I felt that Unite were best placed to represent me in my small (6 people) workplace.
Two years after I got my job, my six person workplace had been bought and consumed into a much bigger entity. I was in now a mid-sized, non-organised, private sector workplace and I was going through a reorganisation process I was pretty sure would end up with me losing my job. So I called the union I was paying a not insignificant amount of money to every month, to ask for some representation in the meetings. “Sorry, we don’t do that,” was the answer.
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Has Angela Rayner found a surprising new fan in the PM?
Angela Rayner is incredibly popular in the Labour Party. She was the Corbynista that the Blairites liked throughout the last leadership regime giving her wide appeal. She was well rewarded in a glide path to the role of Deputy Leader. In fact, most people were at least slightly surprised she wasn’t running for leader – some imploring her to swap places with her flatmate Rebecca Long Bailey.
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Keir Starmer’s supporters should not emulate the Corbynites’ nastiness
It’s a truism, but Twitter isn’t real life. The disparity between the conversations of the online extremes, the extremely online and the rest of the country becomes ever clearer.
The last office of the leader of the opposition did not seem to realise this though. It is striking how often in Left Out — the compelling book by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund about the Corbyn years — the number of Twitter followers a politician has is mentioned when discussing their potential suitability for a role. These days, you simply cannot see this being a factor in Keir Starmer’s decision-making. He actively avoids commenting on the Twitter drama of the week.
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The questions that Grenfell should make you ask
There is little in this world that makes me as angry as the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower, the events leading up to it and the governmental and local governmental response to it.
I say that in light of the fact that Donald Trump is president, Boris Johnson is Prime Minister, government politicians are standing up and declaring their intention to break the law and — at least in part thanks to this government’s incompetence — our lives are being restricted once again. To make me more angry than all of that takes some doing.
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“Spine chilling”: Former Counter-Terrorism boss on attempt to reclassify Extinction Rebellion as organised crime gang
Since Extinction Rebellion’s move to block areas around printing presses in Broxbourne and Knowsley there have been calls to use extreme powers to quash their activities.
The presses largely supply News International titles such as the Times and the Sun and the move was widely criticised by journalists and others. However, XR argue that reporting of Climate change has been ‘woeful’, thus contributing to the crisis.
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Kensington Tory MP condemned for voting against implementing Grenfell recommendations into law
The MP for Kensington – and her Conservative colleagues have been lambasted for voting with the government to stop a Labour amendment to the Fire Safety Bill. The amendment sought to implement the Phase One Recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry in full.
The amendment would have required building owners and managers to share information with their local fire service about materials and design used in external walls and cladding – a key factor in the devastation at Grenfell.
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Extinction Rebellion block entrance to Parliament
As MPs arrived at Parliament this morning they were met by Extinction Rebellion groups sitting in the entrances.
The escalation of disruption followed the tabling of the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill on Tuesday when the bill was put forward by Caroline Lucas MP.
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Sir Ed Davey is the new leader of the Liberal Democrats. What does that mean for UK politics?
The Liberal Democrats have elected the more moderate of the two candidates for leader. As Jennie Rigg said this morning, there was a choice between radical liberalism and pragmatic centralism. By a margin of nearly two to one, they opted for the latter.
Since taking part in the coalition government, the Lib Dems have struggled to be seen as a radical party. There has always been a tension within the party between their radical and more ‘small c’ conservative wings. This is usually resolved by their hyper-localism, which has long allowed them to be the party of both Moran and Davey.
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Extinction Rebellion release details of UK actions over bank holiday
XR has announced a series of actions today throughout the UK. From an ‘elephant in the room’ roadblock in Bristol to a boat called Lightship Greta sailing from Brighton to London, to a feed-in of nursing mothers and older children the actions will be planned on a regional basis.
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Celebrity medics call for measures to tackle anti vaxx propaganda on social media
A group of well-known medics have written to the government to demand more action to tackle the spread of anti-vaccination misinformation on the major social media platforms.
Former junior doctor turned bestselling author, Adam Kay, Dr Ellie Cannon, Dr Phil Hammond, and former star of Embarrassing Bodies, Dr Dawn Harper have co-signed a letter to Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden MP, Home Secretary Priti Patel MP, and Health Secretary Matt Hancock MP, calling on the Cabinet members to introduce legislation “to prevent dangerous lies about health and medicine being spread to millions.”
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Steve Bannon's arrest should raise questions for Boris Johnson
Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon has been arrested on charges of fraud. He is alleged to have been one of a group of four people who defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with the “We Build the Wall” campaign, which raised $25m (£19m). He has pled not guilty and will stand trial.
He is – of course – not the first Trump associate or advisor to fall foul of the law. The art of the grift has a strong seam running through the current US administration, with ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort , ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, ex-deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, political operator Roger Stone and ex-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn all having faced charges.
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The World Transformed in a world transformed
The World Transformed (TWT) – the festival of arts and ideas launched initially by the Corbyn-supporting group Momentum has announced a month-long online festival of events throughout September.
Now an established part of the Labour Party conference experience, TWT is now independent of Momentum, though their ties remain close and you can expect to see many senior Momentum members throughout the programme.
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