My dad died 5 years ago today, and so I thought I’d write down a jumbled mess of thoughts, because I’ve personally found it really helpful to hear other people’s experiences (so, please, do dive in). We don’t have a healthy vocabulary when it comes to death: we often don’t…

For a long time, the dominant media narrative about French politics — one particularly peddled by self-styled ‘centrist’ pundits — was that the left was possessed with so much irrational hatred for French President Emmanuel Macron, that they would either abstain or even vote en masse for far-right candidate Marine…

Yesterday, on the Jeremy Vine Show, we discussed the case of a cyclist who faces being prosecuted or fined after he reported a driver using a phone, because he blocked a van while doing so. Now, I argued against him either being prosecuted or fined, and pointed out that cars…

The rights of an entire minority deserve better than being debated through the prism of a psychodrama involving a children’s author, no matter how many books they have sold, nor how beloved those books may be. The cycle is now predictable: JK Rowling presses ‘send tweet’ on yet another explosive…

Labour have triumphed in the Birmingham Erdington by-election, with former nurse Paulette Hamilton — who was subjected to a series of right-wing attacks on the eve of polling — gaining a 3,266 majority. As the city’s first Black MP, Hamilton has much to be proud of. For supporters of Keir…

Following Ken Loach’s statement that he had been expelled from the Labour party, I sent a tweet declaring that kicking out Britain’s “greatest living film maker while readmitting Trevor Phillips” told you “all you need to know about the state of the current Labour party.” It’s a tweet I stand…

Politics is, more often than not, about the exercise of power rather than truth. A narrative does not need to be honest to triumph: it simply needs to become the commonsense of the powerful. Opponents of the trans rights’ movement — who have the active support of nearly all major…

Why does anyone want to be a parent, with all the stress, exhaustion, and often thankless turmoil it can entail? A simple answer is a very basic instinctive urge implanted in our genes to ensure we procreate and ensure the survival of our species, codified in very powerful and often…

Len McCluskey is a titan of the labour movement and, to my mind, a trade union leader defined by courage, principle and determination. Vilified by the British corporate media, the Unite union in general, and McCluskey in particular, played a pivotal role in the rise of the British left in…