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Great British Politics

Twitter ditches key feature

Twitter has closed part of its analytics function, and no one seems to know whats going on. For years, if you had a website you were able to create 'Twitter cards' which displayed a small preview ...

What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been: the Story of the 2016 US Election

With Hillary Clinton as the presumptive successor to Barack Obama, GBP asks: what made this election so unique when the outcome has always been so ...

All the Honesty of a Student Letting Agent on Steriods: May's Brexit Stance

Today, Theresa May told us what Brexit means. It means hard Brexit, and an awful lot of those who had been asking to know probably wish they hadn’t asked. May not only plans to leave the EU, but to ...

What the Results Mean for Corbyn

Will Simpson is an administrator and writer at Soft Left Politics. Follow Will on Twitter @WillSimo22 Most of the election results are in, official or otherwise. Devastation in Scotland. ...

'UKIP candidate' standing as independent in Batley and Spen by-election

After the murder of Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox, all major political parties decided not to put up candidates against Labour's as a sign of respect. UKIP was one of the first to announce ...

Thursday's Winners & Losers

Most of Thursday’s results are now in. They paint a confusing picture, and have very complex implications. They are, in a way, anti-climactic: the contests went broadly as the pollsters had ...

Labour and Brexit

There is no doubt that Owen Smith establishes a politically appealing argument when he states that there should be a second EU referendum. The logic being, possibly before Article 50 of the Lisbon ...

The Budget, EU Debate and IDS: Why Raising Fuel Duty Rates Could Restore the Fiscal Balancing Act

It’s been a tough month for David Cameron and George Osborne. Among a whole host of other things, Iain Duncan Smith resigned as Secretary for Work and Pensions, citing the controversial changes to ...

The woman who broke Northern Ireland

Many people were surprised when the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, came out so forcefully in her support for the UK leaving the European Union. Despite the ...

Gove sets out trade vision for post-Brexit UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSTTR6kDTas Justice secretary Michael Gove, the co-convenor of the Vote Leave campaign, has set out his vision for the trading relationships the UK would have if it ...

Why did the pollsters get the EU referendum so wrong?

Britain was left stunned last month as the Leave campaign romped to a surprise victory in the EU referendum. Indications had been that Remain would prevail, with most polls projecting a narrow lead ...

The London Crossrail Project

New Train Lines To Connect All of London The Crossrail Project commenced in 2012, and since then, it has run its own version of the London Marathon, with 26 miles of new tunnels being created ...

There are going to be televised Labour Leadership hustings after all

The Labour party has published the dates and details of five hustings in the Labour leadership contest between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith. Smith wants to arrange more of them, but Labour's early ...

Which Labour Leader Are You? Quiz

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Why the SDP failed: Lessons for the future

The SDP shone brightly, but briefly. The gang of four left Foot’s Labour in 1981 and seemed to go from strength to strength. As Foot’s Labour disintegrated- it was a disintegration even ...

The Panama Papers: The Biggest Leak In History

The Panama Papers is the biggest leak in history, certainly in terms of size. What we know at the moment is just the tip of the iceberg; this could be the biggest in terms of magnitude too. As ...

The NEC and CLPs: Serious implications for the Labour Party

The recent decision of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party to suspend ALL Labour Party branches throughout the UK has extremely serious implications for democracy and the Labour ...

Kasich: The last hope for the GOP

The Republican Party is imploding right before our eyes. Having defied political gravity by maintaining a consistent lead in the national polls throughout the course of the last nine months, it is ...

No, the polls don't say Labour would lose 44 seats in 2020

The latest ICM poll isn’t that shocking. The Tories have a huge lead, as you might expect, of 16pts. What was surprising was the hasty conversions people did on what this would mean in ...

Budget 2016: The Sugar Tax

The sugar tax was the shock announcement in today’s budget. Floated for years by politicians and commentators of every colour, it’s a mixed bag. On the one hand, it could have a severely positive ...

Identity in post-Brexit Northern Ireland

In the run up to the EU referendum, former Prime Ministers John Major and Tony Blair visited Derry. With their deep understanding and appreciation for the nuances and sensitivities of Northern Irish ...

Devolving Responsibility: The Cuts Crisis of Local Government

Between 2001 and 2021 the number of people with learning disabilities is expected to rise by 11%, whilst the number of adults over the age of 65 with learning difficulties is expected to rise by 36% ...

Trump: The Art of the Campaign

Picture the scene: You are at a dinner party. The guests are drawn broadly from your own social circle and the conversation is flowing. As the night goes on, the debate on a ...

Why I Love First Past the Post

The British electoral system – a perfect fit for people and ...

The 5 likely paths for Brexit

We have a new Prime Minister. Turns out the Tories weren’t in a mess after all- where the Labour leadership contest has effectively taken around 9 months and may end in a bloody party break up, the ...

A Defector's Tale

I’m not your classic Blairite. I understand, and have argued against, some of the key problems with Blairism. Labour’s right has, for several decades now, been guilty of talking down to people ...

Referendum II - an Italian Horror Story

Had enough of referendums? If so, you are out of luck. In fact, for those concerned about political and economic contagion throughout the EU caused by the outcome of the UK’s ...

Well Worth a Mass

On 23 January 1593, at the age of 40 and having been a convinced Protestant all his life, King Henri IV of France, renounced his faith and became a Catholic. He did this with the (possibly ...

"For heaven's sake man, go!" - A brief history of votes of no-confidence in UK politics

On Tuesday afternoon, the leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, lost a vote of no confidence conducted by the Parliamentary Labour Party by 172 votes to 40. While Labour members remain ...

How 2014 European election results could be converted into Leave/Remain votes

This article was also published in ...

A Modest Proposal - The UK's Article 50 negotiations with the EU

So, the UK has voted for Brexit. No doubt the leaders of the Leave campaign will shortly be pressing for a notification to be made under Article 50 to allow negotiations on the terms of the ...

The dismal record of Conservative energy policy

David Cameron's vow to lead the 'greenest government ever' is lying in tatters in the aftermath of a raft of environmental measures either axed or facing significant ...

Both sides are wrong: Society is better across Europe because of the EU

Like many others, I'm fed up with both campaigns on either side of the EU Referendum question. I'm whole heartedly behind Britain staying in the EU but for basically none of the reasons being ...

Why Labour needs to grow up

In 2009 I was 15 and never had a girlfriend, my only real love was Graham Dorrans and the closest I got to any sort of exhilaration was seeing him score goals for fun against the likes of Scunthorpe ...

#EURef: A vote to leave is a vote for the poisonous politics of apathy

Apathy is the disease which could make Britain the sick man of Europe once again. Speaking firmly as a grassroots Remain campaigner, I have seen first-hand the vitriol and mistrust exerted not only ...

The Housing Crisis: What Should Be Done?

Like many people I extremely concerned about the ability of our children and grandchildren to be able to live in many areas of the UK. Property values are such that owning a home is beyond the ...

Why I believe we're stronger in

On the 23rd of this month, I will be voting to Remain in the EU. I believe in the British economy is stronger in Europe, and the freedoms and benefits EU membership gives us as citizens is unique and ...

Will there ever be another Labour government in the UK?

Since David Cameron transformed the Conservatives into a moderate, “compassionate” party, Labour has faced two blockages to electoral success: its perceived credibility, and its appeal to ...

How could we let our politics get this toxic?

Yesterday a dedicated public servant, a humanitarian, and a mother of two was brutally murdered on the streets of her constituency. Jo Cox was a rising star in Westminster, and in the Labour party, ...

What is happening in the South China Sea?

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Why I'm voting to Remain in the EU

Before anyone gets angry about the EU referendum I'd just like to say I'm firmly in. Any Brexiters amongst you should feel free to disagree, you're entitled to your opinion as it's a democracy we ...

Now is the time ...

.. for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of the ...

Spads - a brilliant new political comedy

Since The Thick of It ended in 2012, we’ve been a bit stuck for political comedy. Finally we may have a solution in new YouTube comedy Spads. The comedy follows two groups of spads in the ...

Jeremy Corbyn and the Falklands

This article was also published in Rob Francis's blog In the 1960s and 1970s, the British government forcibly expelled around 2,000 residents of Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, in order ...

Labour Leave Funded by Tories, Libertarians and Big Business, not Trade Unions, Left Wingers and Socialist Societies

In 1975, the last time Britain had a referendum on Europe, the Labour party was in a similar situation to the Tories today. Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister, and Labour's moderates were advocating ...

Squeeze protest against PM Cameron on Marr

http://youtu.be/sTCmuGCI33w Squeeze used a performance on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show to protest against fellow guest David ...

Is Parliament sovereign?

The Leave campaign has argued that membership of the EU limits the sovereignty of Parliament. But is this true? And what does it mean to be "sovereign"? In advance of June's referendum on the ...

What's Kim up to?

North Korea is now green, or at least that’s what the state propaganda machine would have you believe. According to Central TV, the secretive regime’s government controlled broadcaster, North ...

13 of at least 14 Tory MPs under investigation for election expenses named

Most of the Tory MPs under investigation for their general election expense returns have been named. There are at least 14 under investigation, we now have 13 ...

Corbyn the Avenger

I think it’s only right that a man who dons a Santa hat, heads to his local shopping centre and shakes a donation bucket for Syrian refugees, deserves a semblance of respect in the wake of the ...