The case for public ownership of energy

 Yesterday I heard Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, being interviewed by LBC presenter Nick Ferrari. Nick Ferrari asked him whether, since energy prices were likely to rise as a result of the US and Israeli strikes on Iran and the Iranian attacks around the Middle East in response, it would be a good idea for the government to revise its current stance of not issuing new licences to drill for oil in the North Sea. Why not "drill, baby, drill", asked Ferrari, quoting President Trump. Darren Jones pointed out that this would not help reduce anyone's energy bills, because of the fact that oil prices are set on the global market and would thus be subject to the same inflationary pressures as those affecting oil from all other sources. I heard Energy and Net Zero Minister Ed Miliband make the same argument a couple of weeks ago to explain why issuing new North Sea oil drilling licences is not part of the government's plans to reduce energy bills.

Presumably, the only reason that the price of North Sea oil is "set on the global market" is the fact that it is currently extracted by private companies who are able to take advantage of the global inflation in oil prices and charge similar prices themselves, even though they are not directly impacted by the current turmoil in the middle east. Where North Sea oil to be produced and distributed by a publicly owned entity, prices could be decided at government level on the basis of protecting UK citizens and companies from the inflationary effects of the current Middle East conflict. Surely, this is a clear demonstration of the need for strategic and essential resources to be, where possible, in public rather than private hands. In the absence of full nationalisation, at the very least, the licence fees could be used to reduce the impact of energy inflation during turbulent periods such as the one we are potentially about to experience.

Believing Britain

I saw this a couple of days ago on the YouGov website. It seems that, as of 2025, there are more theists than atheists in the UK!

Is Race relevant?

I saw the following exchange on a feature about black students at Cambridge University on the BBC news this morning:

Student: Do you think this is a place that is institutionally racist?

Vice Chancellor of Cambridge Uni: I think it’s a place where race has not been acknowledged as relevant particularly to the whole intellectual experience of being at Cambridge, so in that sense I would say it is racist because it doesn’t acknowledge race in people’s lives.

This is a massive change that has taken place in the last few years. Previously (say, ten years ago), to view race as a relevant factor in the provision of education, or any other aspect of public life, would, to many people, I think, have been considered racist. Now, though, an institution - and therefore, presumably, an individual person - can be deemed racist by virtue of not taking race into account in its interactions. This complete change of direction is, I suspect, a source of much confusion and misunderstanding in the current conversation around race.
Of course, it can only be a good thing for white people to become more aware of the discrimination and racism suffered by people of colour. But I can't help wondering whether the increased focus on race as a category that defines who a person is - even by those who have never thought of themselves as racist and who previously, at least on a conscious level, considered race to be irrelevant in their dealings with others - might, possibly, prove ultimately to be a cause of increased division rather than a means of healing.

The Sincerity of Jeremy Corbyn

I felt compelled to call LBC this evening because of the way that Nigel Farage (who has his own show on weekday evenings) was trying to portray Jeremy Corbyn as some kind of charlatan for saying he would do whatever it took to stop a no-deal Brexit, and the fact that most of the callers appeared to agree with him that Corbyn could not be trusted, since he has a history of being deeply sceptical about the European Union, and must therefore - according to Nigel and some of his callers -  be trying to take advantage of the situation to gain political power for himself (as if any politician would behave in such a cynical and manipulative manner!)
Click here to hear my conversation with Nigel, which begins at 37:37.

Free Trade, Brexit and the European Union

Throughout the EU referendum and the subsequent wranglings over what form Brexit should take, one of the arguments put forward by opponents of the European Union has been the assertion that the EU is an enemy of free trade. Tariffs that the EU imposes on certain types of goods imported from non-EU countries, eg. agricultural produce from African countries or clothing from China, are cited as examples of a protectionist policy that both helps to perpetuate poverty in the developing world and to punish European consumers by denying them access to cheap goods. The need for Britain to strike free trade deals with growing economies across the world has been pushed as one of the main arguments for Brexit, with cheaper food, clothing and footwear being touted by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg as some of the tangible benefits that will accrue to the ordinary British shopper.
With the looming possibility of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, this depiction of the EU as an essentially protectionist institution seems to have grown in popularity, and I have heard it used frequently in recent weeks as a way of urging the complete disassociation of Britain from the EU’s single market and customs union. Outside of these institutions, it is claimed, Britain will be able to thrive by slashing or completely removing all tariff barriers with the rest of the world, to the benefit of consumers and, ultimately,the UK economy as a whole.
Just this morning I heard someone on the radio (I didn’t catch who he was, probably a spokesperson from some think-tank or other) putting the case for free-trade as a way of generating economic growth and national prosperity, and framing it as an argument for leaving the EU and not remaining a part of the EU customs union. In other words, an attempt is being made to use the powerful and persuasive economic arguments about why free trade is superior to protectionism, in the service of a hard-Brexit stance.
This approach is, in my opinion, either dishonest or mistaken. One of the reasons that I voted for Britain to remain in the EU, and that I would, even if Brexit happens, like us to remain in the customs union and, ideally, the European Economic Area as well,is the fact that I am a supporter of free trade. I’m sure this is true for many, if not most, of those who voted Remain in the referendum. And, of course, the party which is most strongly associated with the Remain position, the Liberal Democrats, is also the party which – both in its current form and as the Liberal Party - has historically been most strongly associated with advocacy of free trade and opposition to protectionism.
The European Union is the largest single market on the planet, and provides for completely tariff-free trade between all member countries. This freedom of trade is further assisted by a common regulatory regime which serves to minimise ‘non-tariff barriers’ such as differences in product standards, food safety regulations etc. It also provides a common minimum set of standards in workers' rights and environmental protections in order to prevent a 'race to the bottom' which could, otherwise, be a downside to the benefits of international free trade.
As well as freedom of movement for goods, services and capital, the EU guarantees the free movement of EU citizens across all internal European borders. This is crucial, because the same logic which demonstrates the harm caused by the erection of barriers to free trade in goods and services, and to the free movement of capital for investment, makes it inevitable that barriers to the free movement of that other factor of production, labour, will also be economically damaging. Yet many of those who ostensibly champion the benefits of free trade in order to bolster support for a hard Brexit are the same people who argue that Britain needs to 'take back control' of its borders.
As well as its internal free trade, the EU has free trade deals with many other countries, all of which will cease to apply to the UK after Brexit. And even if the UK were to unilaterally apply zero tariffs on imports after Brexit, this would not prevent other countries applying tariffs against Britain which would, of course, have a damaging effect on our exports and, therefore, on the British economy in general.
If Britain really is a champion of free trade then it would seem to be a very retrograde move to be about to leave such a gigantic and well established free trade block which also happens to be literally on our doorstep, while simultaneously opting out of all the existing free trade agreements hitherto negotiated on our behalf by that block, and having to begin again, from a much weaker starting point. To claim to be doing it in the name of free trade seems positively deluded.

Brexit and Proportional Representation

As I mentioned in my previous post, I believe that the main reason for the impasse we have arrived at in regards to the Brexit situation is Teresa May’s conviction that she has to deliver a Brexit that matches what she (rightly or wrongly) perceives to be the expectations of the majority of Brexit voters (ie. an end to Freedom of Movement and a withdrawal from the Single Market and customs union or, as she often puts it, “taking back control of our borders, our money and our laws”), rather than trying to find a compromise solution that honours the referendum result while taking into account the wishes of the majority of voters from both sides of the debate (eg. leaving the EU while remaining in the Single Market and customs union – the so called Norway option).
I believe this was a fundamental mistake on her part, but it is possible that it stems from the nature of our electoral system itself. We are used to a First Past the Post system of elections in which the winning side has complete power to implement it’s agenda. So a concern to establish, and act in accordance with, the views of the majority of the majority (rather than simply the majority of the electorate) on specific issues, comes naturally to a politician who is used to working within the First Past the Post paradigm.
This type of of ‘winner takes all’ mentality would, perhaps, be less likely to afflict politicians used to working within a system based on proportional representation, which is yet another argument for introducing PR for UK general elections, something that I have previously argued for on this blog.

We must have a second referendum

I've not posted on this blog for ages, as I became very busy finishing off the MA in History that I was studying via distance learning. Now that is finished, and we are facing probably the most tumultuous few weeks in British politics since the second World war, I feel I ought to post something about Brexit, starting with the political events of the last few days.
Last week, various parliamentarians, including the Speaker, Jon Berkow, were accused by elements in the media, as well as many on social media, of hatching a coup to thwart the "will of the people", when the Speaker allowed an amendment to be added to the government's finance bill which would force the government to come back to parliament within three working days, in the event of Teresa May's withdrawal agreement being defeated, with a statement about how they now wished to proceed. This accusation was utter nonsense. In a matter of such vital importance, it was quite right for the speaker to allow parliament (which represents the whole country) to put some pressure on the government (which, being a minority government, represents less than half of the electorate). During the referendum campaign, many brexiters opined that parliamentary sovereignty was the very thing which they felt was threatened by the UK's membership of the European Union, so it is hard to see why they would complain about parliament trying to exercise some kind of check over the executive in these circumstances. (Some brexiters even called this an unprecedented seizure of power by the legislature over the executive. I would suggest that Charles I, were he still around to comment, might not agree with them on that.)
Last night Teresa May's withdrawal agreement Bill was defeated, by 432 votes to 202, the largest defeat for any government in parliamentary history. Jeremy Corbyn has tabled a vote of no confidence in the government, which will be debated and then voted on today, although the government is expected to survive thanks to the support of the DUP. After last night's defeat, Mrs May said that she would reach out to other senior parliamentarians across the house to try to find out whether there was some form of deal that could be supported by a majority in the house, which could then be put to the the European Union.
However, in this afternoon's Prime Minister's Questions, she stated that any new deal must involve an end to freedom of movement. This shows that she is either in total denial, or is being completely insincere in her offer to listen to other parties. The EU have made it very clear that the current deal is the only possible deal on offer if the UK insists on leaving the single market and customs union, and there is no way that Britain would be allowed to stay in those institutions if it does not accept freedom of movement.
For the past two years, Mrs May has let herself be guided by the misguided notion that it is her duty to take Britain out of the single market, out of the customs union, and to end freedom of movement, because, apparently, that was what most leave voters wanted when they cast their vote to leave the EU. This was a fundamental mistake because, as I argued in this post shortly after the referendum, even though many Brexit voters may have been opponents of immigration, the fact that the leave vote was only 52% means that the anti-immigrant brexiters were undoubtedly only a minority of the those who actually took part in the referendum. There is, therefore, no mandate for insisting on an end to freedom of movement or membership of the single market or customs union. Mrs May's inability to see this could potentially lead this country to disaster.
There has been talk recently of a move within parliament to come together around a Norway style deal (something I argued for in the post just referenced), but if Mrs May is intransigent on this then there is no real possibility of it coming to fruition. If she survives today's no confidence vote, then we are left with only two options. Either a 'no deal' Brexit, which almost all forecasters say would be disastrous for the country, or no Brexit at all. Until a few weeks ago, I was opposed to the idea of a second referendum, but since these seem now to be the only two options (unless, against all predictions, today's no confidence motion succeeds) I have now become a supporter. I do not believe that there has ever been a majority for a 'no deal' Brexit. Indeed, the latest polling indicates that staying in the EU is now the "will of the people". It would, in fact, be an affront to democracy if the government were to take us out of the European Union with no deal, without first checking if that was what the majority of the British people wanted.

On finding one's 'political home'

I listen to LBC Radio a lot, mainly to the shows of James O’Brien, Maajid Nawaz and Iain Dale. One thing I’ve noticed that crops up in a lot of calls lately is the idea of people searching for a political home. Many callers are essentially socially or economically conservative but are not comfortable with the Tories’ approach to Brexit, or feel that austerity has ‘gone too far’. Others may be of a centre left political stance but might not feel very enamoured of Jeremy Corbyn or the more ‘hard left’ elements which seem now to have become the mainstream of the Labour party. Then there are the hard core Brexiteers who are angry at the perceived dithering of the government over the issue of the UK leaving the European Union. And, equally, the unrepentant Remainers who don’t feel that the Labour party, as the official opposition, are doing enough to fight for the pro-EU position. These people often say that they feel they have no political home. But, sometimes, a caller will announce, like an enthusiastic religious convert, that he or she has, at last, found his/her political home, perhaps in the Liberal Democrat party or, more often, as a member or supporter of UKIP.
This idea of needing to find one’s political home seems rather pointless and, to be honest, somewhat self-indulgent to me. Political parties exist essentially for the purpose of gaining power in order to enact the policies that they promote. I don’t see the point in joining a political party in order to be amongst people who have views that are as near as possible to one’s own, if there is no real prospect of getting a chance to put those views into practice. For some people, it even seems as if their party affiliation is worn as a kind of intellectual fashion accessory, in order to let people know at a glance - particularly on social media - what type of views they hold and what viewpoints they disdain, which politicians they feel an affinity for and which ones they hold in contempt.
I am a member of the Labour party, not because I believe in everything that party stands for - in fact they are not even the party whose basic views are most similar to my own at the moment – but because, of the two parties which have any real chance of coming to power in Britain at the moment, they are the one I would most like to see in government. Their policies in regard to funding the NHS and lifting the public sector pay cap, and their concerns about the cost of living and, in particular, of housing, are more in accord with my own, and relevant to the life circumstances of myself and my family, than those of the Conservatives. But politics is not sport and should not operate on the basis of tribal loyalties. Should the day come when it makes more sense to vote, say, Liberal Democrat (as I have done in more than one general election in the past) in order for more of the policies that I believe in to have a better chance of being implemented, then I will gladly jump ship and support the Lib Dems. That is the only way in which the idea of finding one’s ‘political home’ makes any sense to me.

Trump's stance on Afghanistan could prove counterproductive

President Trump - who seems to have abandoned the isolationist stance he appeared to adopt during his election campaign - announced last night that there will be a further 4000 American troops sent into Afghanistan, and he has called on the UK and other NATO countries to follow suit. This time, though, the remit of the US forces will not involve any attempt at 'nation building'. Their purpose, he says, is simply to kill terrorists.
There is a real danger, in my opinion, that this will turn out to be an extremely counterproductive move. With the US military mission being told specifically to not concern itself with 'nation building', there is a potential to slip into an attitude of disregard for the safety and well being of afghan civil society and, indeed, afghan civilians, altogether. Consequently, the US could end up making a lot more enemies in the region than it already has, thus ultimately increasing the threat to American interests and American security far beyond its current level.

First thoughts on the election result

This is a good outcome for those of us (like myself) who are opposed to a 'hard brexit'. A weakened Theresa May will be presiding over a Tory parliamentary party many of whom are surely opposed to the headlong rush to leave the single market that has been May's policy up until now, and facing a strengthened Labour/SNP/Libdem opposition. At this point I think there is hope for the possibility of the UK remaining within the European Economic Area. Indeed, that would surely be the only sensible thing to do, when the alternative is to be recklessly led out of the single market by a demonstrably weak and wobbly Tory administration in charge of negotiating an acceptable 'divorce' settlement in a limited time frame, beginning in 11 days time. Also, in terms of things like the future of the NHS, social care, workers' rights etc, it's obviously less scary to have a Tory minority government than one with an unassailable five year mandate to wreak as much havoc as it likes.

Council tenants contribute to social care too

I don't agree with the Tory policy of making home owners pay for social care by having to pay all but £100 thousand pounds of the value of their homes to the local authority after they die. However, I have heard several people, both on the radio and on the doorstep while canvassing (for Labour), complain about the policy in something like the following words:
"Why should I, when I've worked hard all my life to be able to own my own home and have something to pass on to my children, have to sell my house and give most of the money to the government in order to pay for my care, while someone who lives in a council house will get the same care completely free of charge?"
As someone who lives in a council house, I find this view very annoying, because it is based on a complete misunderstanding of the situation. Let me demonstrate with some simple calculations. I realise rents and house prices have been lower in the past than they are today, and they may be higher in the future, but for the sake of simplicity I'll do the calculations in today's money.
My rent is currently £620 per month. I first moved in to a council house when I was 22, but I spent some time unemployed and some in private rented accommodation, so I'll write off three years and start my calculations from the age of 25. So someone, such as myself, who moves into council accommodation at a cost of £620 per month and pays full rent from the age of 25 until the age of 67 (the retirement age for people, such as myself, who are reliant on a state pension and who will not retire before 2028) will, by the time they retire, have paid a total of £312,480 in rent - all of which goes back to the local authority (the very body which is responsible for social care). This is the equivalent of what someone who owns a home worth £412,480 would have to pay. Like the home owner, the council house tenant will have no home of their own left to pass on to their children, in spite of all that money they have paid throughout their lives. But unlike the home owner, they won't have £100 thousand pounds of assets left over. Furthermore, this will be the case whether or not they require social care.
I don't agree with the Tory policy, because I believe health and social care should be integrated and free at the point of delivery for everyone, but I hope I have demonstrated that just because someone lives in a council house does not mean that they are somehow free-riding at the expense of homeowners when it comes to paying towards the care that we may all, some day, come to rely on.

Update

Obviously, everything I wrote in my previous post about how I intended to respond to the outcome of the County Council elections is now completely null and void, since we are now in a General Election campaign. I intend to campaign as fully as possible for a Labour victory in that General Election. Issues of party leadership will, no doubt, take care of themselves after 8th June.

Leaving Labour? My plans regarding party membership

For some weeks now, I have been on the verge of leaving the Labour party. I became a registered Labour supporter through Unison in 2015, before the general election and rejoined the party (I had previously been a member in the late 80s/early 90s) as a full member at the beginning of 2016. I got involved with the party again because I felt that they were the only party that had a chance of defeating the Conservatives – who, in my opinion, were guilty of unfair and unnecessary systematic and ideologically based underfunding of essential public services - and until fairly recently I still believed Labour were the only party that could stop the Tories in the next general election, whether it comes in 2020 or sooner. However, it is now pretty clear that Labour have no chance of winning the next general election under Jeremy Corbyn who, while very good at Labour leadership campaigns, seems to be quite inept at being leader of the opposition. Labour have consistently been a long way behind the Tories in the polls (the two most recent ones, here and here, put them 18 percentage points behind, with the one on 29th March putting Corbyn’s personal popularity 40 points behind that of Theresa May).
Rather than leave now, however, I have decided to remain in the party and to take part in the campaigning for the County Council elections which are due to take place on 4th May. If Labour defy expectations and do well in these elections then I shall take it as a sign that the tide is turning and that Labour still stand a chance of clawing their way back to a position of being able to mount a serious challenge to the Tories by the time the next general election comes around. If, however, as seems much more likely, Labour suffer serious losses then, unless Mr Corbyn resigns his position as leader, I shall resign from the party. Corbyn failing to stand aside after a disastrous performance in these elections will be, to my mind, a clear sign that he puts his loyalty to that large majority of Labour members and registered supporters who twice elected him as leader of the party, before his loyalty to that far larger number of people who rely on the Labour Party to be in a position to effectively oppose the Conservative government and to be able to take power themselves at the soonest available opportunity.
If Jeremy Corbyn does stand down in the wake of a drubbing on 4th May then I shall, for the time being, remain a member of the Labour Party. His most likely replacement, according to most commentators, will be either Clive Lewis or Keir Starmer. I would prefer Starmer, but even if Clive Lewis takes over I will stick around and see how things go under his leadership. It’s hard to imagine that the situation for the party can get much worse than it is now. Should Labour’s share of the vote tank in the elections next month and Mr Corbyn do the decent thing and resign then hopefully, whoever succeeds him, to quote a song once popular with a previous Labour leader, "things can only get better!"

Has Brexit brought a united Ireland closer?

According to Wikipedia the population of Northern Ireland is 45.6% protestant and 40.2% Roman Catholic. I realise that not all protestants are unionists and not all Catholics are nationalists, but the history of each of those two communities is deeply intertwined with those respective political traditions. An Ipsos MORI poll in 2013 found that 38% of Catholics wanted Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom, compared to 35% who supported a united Ireland.
In the EU referendum, the electorate in Northern Ireland voted by 56% to 44% to remain in the European Union.
In Thurday's Northern Ireland assembly elections, the results of which were announced last night and in which the turnout was 65% compared to only 54% last year, the Democratic Unionist Party's majority over Sinn Fein was reduced from ten seats to only one seat, with Sinn Fein's over all vote increased by 4%.
I don't live in Northern Ireland and neither am I particularly informed about Northern Ireland politics but, taking the above facts into account, I can't help but wonder whether the looming 'hard Brexit' has made the prospect of a United Ireland (and hence the six counties that currently comprise Northern Ireland being able to stay in the EU) more palatable to voters, particularly those from among that 38% of Roman Catholics who, in 2013, supported remaining a part of the United Kingdom. In other words, could it be that the UK vote to leave the European Union has brought the prospect of a United Ireland a lot closer than it was before June 23rd 2016.

My reluctant conclusion: Jeremy must go

It's now been five months since Jeremy Corbyn won his second Labour leadership contest. The dissenters within the PLP have been pretty quiet, but still Labour's dire opinion poll rankings refuse to shift (at least not upwards) and Corbyn's personal ratings are even worse than the party's. I voted for him twice (pretty reluctantly the second time) and have tried to stay positive about his leadership (my post of 31st December was written more to try and convince myself than anyone else) but I have finally come to the conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn has to go, or Labour will have absolutely no chance of winning the next general election and we will be condemned to five more years of the Conservatives, this time with a vastly increased majority.

It's time to get behind the leader

In 2015 after Ed Miliband resigned following Labour's defeat in the general election, I had been planning on voting for Andy Burnham as the new leader. However, after watching Burnham's slickly produced campaign video, with cheesy music and liberal sprinklings of the latest focus group inspired buzzword, "aspiration" (Yvette Cooper was equally guilty of this) and comparing that to Corbyn's straightforward and guileless performances at the hustings, I was quickly won over to the Corbyn cause (I admit there was an element of Old Labour nostalgia involved as well) even though his views are further to the left than mine and I don't share his unilateralism or his republicanism.
By the time of the 2016 Labour leadership contest I was far less sure about whether to cast my vote for Corbyn again. Labour were tanking in the opinion polls but it was difficult to say how much of that was due to lack of support for the leadership among the parliamentary party. I dithered for a while and I actually voted for the pro-Owen Smith slate in the National Executive Committee elections. In the end, two things made me decide to give Jeremy another chance. Firstly, I disagreed with Owen Smith's policy of wanting to hold a second EU referendum, and believed this could potentially alienate a large number of voters in a forthcoming general election. Secondly, I felt that the outcome of the EU referendum and the inexorable rise of Donald Trump in America showed that we were in a period of 'anti-establishment' politics whereby large sections of the public - often those who hadn't previously taken much of an interest in politics - were intent on confounding the media and bucking the opinion polls by supporting positions that went against the perceived 'script'. I felt that, in this kind of political environment, Corbyn's unpolished style and consistent track record of conviction politics might just be what was needed to strike a chord with voters and, like Brexit and Trump, defy the expectations of the bookies and the pollsters.
Since the leadership election I have tried to remain positive about Mr Corbyn's leadership despite the fact that Labour have not made much headway in terms of opinion polls. He occasionally does a good interview and seems (sometimes, at least) to be getting better at Prime Minister's Questions. As for those reasons why I voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the last leadership election, well, neither of them seems to be quite so applicable any more. Firstly, I now believe we should have a second referendum - not on whether to leave the European Union but on whether or not to remain within the European Economic Area. I believe the result would show that there is no mandate for a so-called 'hard Brexit'. This is not really that different from Owen Smith's position that we should hold a second referendum on whether or not to accept whatever deal is on offer at the end of the government's Brexit negotiations.
Secondly, what I now realise is that the current anti-establishment mood among large sections of the public is a very specific form of anti-establishment politics; it has an anti-globalisation, anti-'elite' element which might chime in with some of what Corbyn stands for but it is also essentially very much a reaction against political correctness and mass immigration and it regards the left and those who, like Corbyn and those around him, call themselves socialists, as brainwashed stooges of the hated liberal 'political class'. This may be an era of anti-establishment politics but, unfortunately, in some ways at least, Jeremy Corbyn is simply the wrong kind of anti-establishment. (I'm not suggesting Labour should pander to this populist mood, it's just that I no longer think it's something that Jeremy Corbyn can necessarily benefit from significantly.)
With an unelected, authoritarian Prime Minister apparently intent on taking the UK out of the single market without a proper mandate, and NHS and social care services struggling simply to stay afloat, I can't help feeling that the Tories are getting far too easy a ride at the moment. It's essential for those of us who value the NHS, good quality state funded education and the welfare state in general that the Labour Party functions as a strong parliamemtary opposition to the current Tory regime. It's even more essential that, when the next general election is called, Labour is in a position to take votes from all sections of the public including a significant number of those who have previously voted Conservative or Liberal Democrat.
My intention, however, is not merely to be negative and I'm certainly not arguing that there should be another leadership challenge. Jeremy Corbyn may not be the finished article yet, and a leadership team made up of the likes of Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott etc. is probably not best calculated to appeal to floating voters, but the blame for Labour's current predicament cannot be laid entirely at the feet of Corbyn and his supporters. Tony Benn once likened the Labour Party to a bird, pointing out that it relied on both its wings to be able to fly. If those on the centre left and the 'right' of the party would have another crack at working with Corbyn - however difficult he may be to work with - for the good of the party and, more importantly, the good of the country, then I believe the situation can be salvaged and the Labour Party could once again become both a formidable opponent to the current government and a viable, credible government in waiting.

Aside from all the xenophobia and misogyny...

...Trump's policies will be bad for the US (and consequently the world's) economy. Protectionism can create jobs in the protected sectors but because those goods will then be more expensive, consumers have less to spend on other items, which means job losses for those who produce those items, as well as poorer consumers. Protectionism is robbing Peter to pay Paul and then robbing Paul as well! The markets are already reacting badly.

Has anyone else noticed...? (2)

Conservative MP and ardent Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg and Irish Nationalist and strategic mastermind of the 1916 Easter Rising Joseph Plunkett.

I wonder if they could be related.

Everyday sexism and royal protocols

I have always tried to avoid sexist stereotypes or sexist language with my children. For example, I always use the expression 'human-made' rather than the term I was brought up with, 'man-made'. If someone in the house says, 'a man will be coming round to fix the boiler', I will always point out that we don't know whether it will be a man or a woman. My wife is now the main breadwinner in our family. Yet somehow sexist stereotyping still gets through, even with very young children. Recently I was having a conversation with my youngest children, who were then 9 and 10, about the royal family. I mentioned the fact that while the wife of a King is referred to as a Queen, the husband of a Queen who is the head of State (such as our own Queen, Elizabeth II) is not referred to as a King. I said I didn't know why this was the case and, without missing a heartbeat, my 10 year old daughter said, "It's because if they called the Queen's husband a King, it would make him seem more important than her." I was quite taken aback, as I realised she had somehow, at the age of 10, while attending a school where the vast majority of teachers were female, managed to imbibe the idea that a male is considered more important by our society than a female who does the exact same job.

How Nigel Farage and Donald Trump persuaded me to vote for Jeremy Corbyn

I've been flipping backwards and forwards on the question of who to vote for in the Labour Leadership election ever since Owen Smith threw his hat into the ring but today my vote finally arrived and it was burning a hole in my email server, so I decided that today would be decision day. I would finally choose which side I am on. And, for a couple of reasons, I have found myself swinging back towards Jeremy Corbyn lately.
Firstly, as a member of the Labour Party I intend to help with campaigning in the run-up to the next General Election. That means that if Owen Smith becomes leader I would find myself campaigning on a manifesto which includes the staging of a second referendum on EU membership, something I am opposed to on principle as I believe to hold another EU referendum without ever implementing the decision of the first one would seriously undermine many people's faith in the democratic process in this country. Such a policy might well also alienate a lot of so-called 'traditional Labour voters'.
Secondly, while the main reason I have been seriously tempted to vote for Owen Smith is the belief that he's more likely to beat the Tories in a general election - a belief largely generated and fostered by the media and backed up by opinion polls - I can't escape the nagging feeling that maybe I'm allowing myself to be misled. After all, neither the media nor the pollsters foresaw a Tory majority in the 2015 general election and the polling companies and even the bookies were confident that the Remain campaign would win the EU referendum. Last night, in fact, Nigel Farage was in America giving a speech about "the Brexit story" to a rally of Donald Trump supporters - another politician who was initially given very little chance of success by the media, in his bid to win the Republican Party presidential nomination. 'Anti-establishment' politicians (of which, surely, Corbyn is one) seem to be doing better than expected at the moment. Perhaps the type of people who vote for such candidates and causes are less likely than others to respond to opinion polls. Jeremy hasn't been given much of a chance yet and I think he probably deserves at least one decent crack at a general election.
Maybe I'm guilty of letting my heart overrule my head, but - taking all the above points into consideration - at 9.40pm this evening I cast my vote for Jeremy Corbyn to remain as leader of the Labour Party.