This general election could well break records: pollsters are predicting the lowest turnout in modern history. People feel politically homeless. That there’s no point in voting. That none of the politicians can change anything. In this respect, they have a …
British feminism needs a history lesson
These days, we tend to interpret figures from long ago as if they lived just across the road. Such is the thesis of French sociologist Olivier Roy, who argues that an erasure of national cultural history is well underway. We …
Why all MPs are gamblers
“Are you two really the best we’ve got to be the next prime minister of our great country?”, asked Robert, during the final election leadership debate. As a Question Time audience intervention, it was a classic of the genre: knowing, …
Labour won’t save the NHS
Any culture, society or nation is ultimately judged on how it protects its citizens, and how it treats and cares for its most vulnerable. And on this standard, the Conservatives have failed. Over the past 14 years, their contempt has …
You have been expelled from politics
In a short story published in 1955, Isaac Asimov imagined America’s Presidential election day in 2008. Amid intense excitement, the entire world watches on as an ordinary citizen is led forward to cast his vote — the only vote needed …
The very eccentric birth of Labour
In the freezing West Riding winter of January 1893, around 120 miscellaneous radicals and reformers met in Bradford’s Labour Institute — originally a Wesleyan chapel, later a Salvation Army barracks — to debate the creation of a new political body. …
Britain’s weirdest constituency
If you live in Sheffield Hallam constituency, there’s a fair chance you’ve been approached for a vox pop by a broadsheet newspaper recently. The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times — all have come to visit in the …
Inside the nudist renaissance
The gladdest sight of a lacklustre May was Charles Dance emerging naked and magnificent, like Botticelli’s Venus, from the sea on Formentera. The UK press pixelated the actor’s genitals as if that justified the intrusion, but prurient types (me) still …
What nationalists could learn from Quebec
Weeks before the present election campaign began, Keir Starmer raised eyebrows when he called for Labour candidates to “fly the flag” on St George’s Day, in an attempt to displace the Tories as the party of patriotism. But in truth, …
How Britain abandoned Scotland
It’s half past midnight on the Isle of Benbecula — far, far away on the outer edges of Europe — and Angus Brendan MacNeil MP is getting into his stride. “If you want Scotland to stay, you should want Ireland …
Will Pope Francis kill the Latin Mass?
A month ago, 18,000 young people walked on pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres Cathedral in order to demonstrate their love of the Traditional Latin Mass — an intricate and solemn ceremony which, to the horror of Pope Francis, is attracting …
Keir Starmer’s moral vacuum
Who is Sir Keir Starmer, really? It’s fairly clear that the British public have difficulty with this question. Although by now they’ve probably picked up that he’s the son of a toolmaker, much else remains obscure. On the face of …
Politics is killing the talk show
“I’m not allowed to give any party-political views,” says Julia Hartley-Brewer, on Talk Radio, “but I’m certainly allowed to give my views.” And she goes on to do so. Because this is not the BBC, where presenters are (theoretically, at …
The battle for Cornwall’s cowboy town
Britain’s forgotten peninsular is still being ignoredThe first question at the St Ives constituency hustings is about mobile post office provision in Godolphin Cross. I knew it would be. We sit in a Methodist church in Helston, under a sign: …
Westminster’s gambling addiction
When, in the autumn of 1963, Harold Macmillan resigned as Prime Minister, there was no formal mechanism in place for deciding who his replacement would be. Back then, the Conservative Party still prided itself in a self-selecting process — what …