This is without doubt a new era in politics. The end of a Labour decade, the Liberals are back in government, and of course the start of a coalition. The Education Secretary’s disastrous mishandling over the Building Schools for the Future program posed the question of how long the government’s honeymoon will last and there [...]

In the days following the General Election, the Liberal Democrat Party changed drastically. In Part Four, I looked at how Labour should treat the Lib Dems in a temporary coalition, now in Part five I intend to look at the party in the longer term. In a Politics Show debate between the three prospective chancellors, [...]

In the previous one, two and three parts, I have covered various opportunities that have arisen from the peculiarity of a Coalition government, argued that the Coalition will remain intact until the end of the parliament and why Labour should not try to drive a wedge between the two parties. The first trilogy was about [...]

At the start of the hung parliament, our instincts told us that the coalition would be unstable and probably break down within a year or two. Be it out of No Confidence from parliament or confidence that the Tories could win a majority alone, as Harold Wilson did in 1964. On the contrary, everything we [...]

The rise of the BNP is an issue that strikes a strange nerve in the Labour movement, one that triggers a huge sense of panic and hysteria. It is time to confront this phobia so we can confront the problem head on. Our first act must be to renounce the No Platform Policy. Those in [...]

I am absolutely furious at the disgraceful PPB released last week. There was no mention of Europe for the European Parliament Elections, there was no mention of councils for the Local Elections, and there was barely any mention of Labour either. The broadcast was 2:40 of pure negative embarrassment. It is an obviously testing time [...]