RAMZY BAROUD on how Israel’s narrative collides with military failure
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Even the centre laments the state of the Commons
Westminster is crumbling, along with its legitimacy in the eyes of the populace. A new book from the 'technocratic centre' looks at why this is — but SOLOMON HUGHES argues, it's mainly because MPs would rather perform rituals than deliver progress
ROGER McKENZIE explains how Ibrahim Traore has sparked the flames of hope across Africa, while the Western powers seek to extinguish all attempts to build true sovereignty in the long-exploited continent
DANIEL GOVER considers the procedural complexities awaiting a Private Member’s Bill in its passage through Commons and Lords
JAMIE TUCKNUTT reports on an initiative that brings together two epochs of the city’s anti-fascist struggles
Just as German Social Democrats joined the Nazis in singing Deutschland Uber Alles, ANDREW MURRAY observes how Starmer tries to out-Farage Farage with anti-migrant policies — but evidence shows Reform voters come from Tories, not Labour, making this ploy morally bankrupt and politically pointless
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet
With turnout plummeting and faith in Parliament collapsing, BERT SCHOUWENBURG explains how radical local government reform — including devolved taxation and removal of party politics from town halls — could restore power to communities currently ignored by profit-obsessed MPs
BRITISH parliamentary democracy is in such a poor state that Dr Hannah White — a very mainstream figure, a former Commons clerk, one-time secretary to the committee on standards in public life, and current head of super-respectable think tank the Institute for Government — thinks Parliament burning to the ground is probably the best hope for reform.
White’s recent book, Held in Contempt: What’s Wrong with the House of Commons, published this year, looks at what’s wrong with the processes of government.
Her think tank takes what you might think of as a technocratic rather than a “political” approach — although of course technocracy is itself a kind of “sensible centrist” politics. It’s not the political approach I favour, but she and it are on the ball, even if I don’t always agree with the game they play.
More from this author
Labour’s pop-loving front bench have snaffled up even more music tickets worth thousands apiece, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
Secret consultation documents finally released after the Morning Star’s two-year freedom of information battle show the Home Office misrepresented public opinion, claiming support for policies that most respondents actually strongly criticised as dangerous and unfair, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
