Last Friday, Jonathan Rutherford recommended the Russians Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam. The former reassured us from Soviet exile that, ‘In Petersburg we’ll meet again / As though it was where we’d laid the sun to rest.’ From our more mundane exile we can look ahead to reunions in our own Petersburgs. In the meantime I’ve been led to books whose vividness contrasts with this strange, sterile passage of time.
Read moreReading in the Time of Coronavirus - Part One
I’ll start with the thrillers of Robert Crais which I’ve been reading. They feature two great characters, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. It’s best to start with the first in the series, The Monkey’s Raincoat, although LA Requiem might be the definitive story. Pike beats Jack Reacher as a modern heroic figure, less perfect, more rough edged, a crusader of the good. There is a lot of cultural snobbery about the thriller, but if you want insights into society, power, masculinity, the pursuit of justice, you’ll find nowhere better to look.
Read moreA Spectre is Haunting the Labour Party
A spectre is haunting the Labour party — the spectre of Blue Labour.
Every now and then, progressives come for us. On social media, in hastily assembled blogs and academic papers, in newspaper columns and in parliamentary soirees. It tends to happen after progressives have a rare encounter with the working class, which usually doesn’t go very well.
Read moreThe Trans Debate and the Labour Party
The future of the Labour Party hangs in the balance. Its fourth consecutive defeat has finally severed its relationship with its traditional core vote in the ex-industrial regions of the North and Midlands. It drifts, unmoored from its old national coalition and without a new one to replace it.
Read moreAll Hail Good King Boris
With one throw of the dice, Boris Johnson broke the Brexit interregnum. After three years of frantic inertia, he resolved the impasse through transforming the class basis of the Conservative Party. In doing so, he has renewed his party for a generation and ripped into the Labour heartlands …
Read moreFrom Woodstock to Brexit: the tragedy of the liberal middle class
This article was originally published by the New Statesman in December 2019: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2019/12/woodstock-brexit
What has happened to the middle class? Being middle class in Britain was once defined by a safe, lifelong career, a 25-year mortgage and an invariable allegiance to the Conservative Party.
Read moreA Christmas and New Year Letter from Maurice Glasman
This has been a very painful year. The election of the 12th of December marked a decisive rupture of Labour from the working class and an acceleration of our transformation into a European Progressive Party based in our big cities.
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