Sea Change

If you were involved in planning, say, the next Great Train Robbery, Jeremy Corbyn would be the last person you’d ever want on the team. The Absolute Boy just cannot keep his mouth shut or remember what he’s supposed to say. Note his interview on the eve of the Labour Party conference in which he started musing about the Single Market. “We need to look very carefully at the terms of any trade relationship, because at the moment we are part of the single market, obviously,’ he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr. ‘That has restrictions on state aid and state spending. That has pressures on it, through the European Union, to privatise rail, for example, and other services. I think we have to be quite careful about the powers we need as national governments.’ You can imagine Keir Starmer slowly and methodically punching a pillar in the lobby of the Grand Hotel in Brighton as he heard the Jezster open his mouth. Corybn is simply revealing what we have known about him since time i...

The storm over London's Uber ban sits right at the very heart of the debate about modern economic and political life. When the app's disruptive power transformed the way in which many people travel around the city, it threw up a whole host of issues. There's the impact on traditional black cabs and the minicab trade, along with the claim that the company spends incredible sums of money subsidising fares in a way that's designed to eliminate competition. There's the employment status of the Uber drivers, which is subject to ongoing legal dispute.  And then, of course, there are the tax arrangements of the company itself. Undoubtedly the most controversial issue of all was the accusation that Uber fails to vet its drivers properly and has been selective in the crimes that it has chosen to report to the police. Uber doesn't see its role as one of policeman. It doesn't even consider the drivers to be its employees. If it did, there would immediately be all...

What motivates decent people to stay as members of the Labour Party? It’s a question I’ve been pondering intensely over the past year, which I’ve spent in self-imposed exile. I resigned the moment Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected as leader after the contest with Owen Smith. When I quit, it was with a very heavy heart. As far back as the late 1980s, I’d served as Labour General Secretary of the London NUS. By the early 90s, I was chairing Frank Dobson’s constituency party in inner London. On two occasions, I stood as a Labour parliamentary candidate. If you make that kind of commitment, you assume it’s a relationship that will last for life. And even though I hadn’t been an activist in recent years, it never occurred to me that I’d be forced to rip up my party card.  Today, as Labour’s 2017 conference looms, I wonder how anyone with a moderate viewpoint can kid themselves the party is even worth rescuing. One group of centre-ground survivors falls into the categ...

A number of people have pointed out the similarities between the populist movements of Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn. Although from opposite sides of the political divide, the two leaders both command cheering crowds of adoring fans and enjoy the vociferous backing of online trolls, who take no prisoners in defence of their cause. Tellingly, Jez and Trump share a disdain for the ‘establishment’, as embodied in the media and the mainstream political elite. Their political supporters patronise partisan alt-news websites and share a hatred of what they see as any kind of official news narrative.  Crackpot conspiracies and visceral distrust are at the heart of both political movements. The American President and British Labour Leader also share strong misgivings about multinational institutions such as NATO, the EU and the World Trade Organization. They are instinctively protectionist, opposed to globalisation and share an illusion that jobs in traditional industries such as ...