Stuck in the middle – the demand for a new centrist party isn’t from the voters

If only we could all be more like Richard Tull. As the antihero of Martin Amis’s novel The Information, the anguished writer has fallen out of favour with the literary crowd but still aspires to their pretensions – not least in politics, where he feels at home among the soft-Left consensus of Tory-fatigued, mid-Nineties London. […]

Have you heard the one about a has-been MP and his fruity festival show?

It was roughly at the fifth S&M joke that I settled in and began to enjoy Alex Salmond’s Edinburgh Fringe show. You would think the former First Minister would have had his fill after being spanked on election night by the Tories. But kinkiness was a running gag in yesterday’s hour-long show, with innuendo about […]

Pride and persuasion

When they convince themselves Grampa Simpson is gay, Marge remarks to Homer: ‘He probably doesn’t know how tolerant society has become. They even had a gay float in the Pride parade last year.’ The Pride Wars are now a fixed feature of LGBT politics. Lefties attack the event for being too corporate and apolitical. Tories, not always […]

Want to Trump the President? Time to take a leaf out of Ruth’s playbook.

Liberalism is a fine idea until you let liberals get their hands on it. That’s when a sensible outlook on life turns rigid, shrill and intolerant. Smugness is the original sin of liberalism, the Tell-Tale Heart of the rational mind. John Stuart Mill is often quoted deriding the Tories as ‘the stupid party’ but if […]

The false prophets of the ‘new politics’ making promises they cannot keep

Here are some things politics is not. Politics is not a religion – the leader you idolise is a graven image. Politics is not self-help – government is about changing society, not boosting your self-esteem. Politics is not a lifestyle statement – if you are seeking affirmation, try Oprah. If these strike you as statements […]

Jeremy to the left, Ruth to the right… I (almost) feel sorry for the squeezed SNP

There are fleeting moments when I forget myself and start to feel ever so slightly sorry for the SNP. A mere two years ago, it was untouchable. It might have lost the referendum but it had won the war for hearts and minds. Scotland had a majority SNP government at Holyrood, 56 Nationalist MPs at […]

Blair may be a shouty old uncle, but he’s got a point about Corbyn

The Labour Party is like one of those grim kitchen sink dramas set in the Midlands and invariably starring Julie Walters. The family home is a battleground of bad blood and betrayal. Fights erupt at random intervals. Grudges are so enduring even those who hold them no longer remember why. From time to time, the […]