The Mirror Crack'd

As I relax in the relative cool of my inner-city council flat the temperature outside is reaching 30° Celsius. I'm lucky enough to live on a post-war estate with tower blocks interspersed with lawns and mature trees, surrounded by lower-level homes with private rear gardens (good socialist mid-century urban planning in other words). At this time of year it is something of a green oasis but, with the windows open to encourage a cooling through-draught (something else socialist architects, inspired by principle rather than the profit motive, understood), I'm aware of the sounds of my neighbours enjoying a rare sunny Bank Holiday weekend  alfresco.  As I type I can hear Bob Marley from one garden and Bangla from a parked car, which has set me thinking about our supposed multi-cultural community, and multi-culturalism in the wider national context. As far as the former is concerned, the prevailing atmosphere could optimistically be described as 'live and let live' although ...

So, Labour is proposing price controls on essential food items and a £300m VAT reduction on UK summer holiday attractions? As weather forecasters predict temperatures in the low 30s Celcius this late-spring Bank Holiday weekend, a long hot summer could provoke civil unrest if prices continue to rise at home and Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is not lifted, meaning flights to foreign holiday destinations become unaffordable to all but the super-rich due to the increased cost of jet fuel. Last year I wrote to the government suggesting that the 75th anniversary of the Festival of Britain this year would present a perfect opportunity for Labour to promote, in Dr Johnson's immortal phrase, 'the gaiety of nations', as the post-war Attlee government did in 1951. Answer came there none. The Roman Empire adopted a similarly pragmatic policy, panem et circenses , when it came to appeasing a restive populace in the hope of avoiding riots, although it was done on a much mo...

41 sitting Labour MPs in the House of Commons are currently also Co-operative MPs - aren't they missing a trick? In the more-than-usually febrile political atmosphere of Westminster the discussion around the pros and cons of introducing price controls on basic food items - such as eggs, bread and milk - to help tackle the cost of living crisis has inevitably descended into extreme positions: freedom of the markets versus a command and control economy. Neither extreme is being seriously discussed for implementation as government policy and neither is advisable or likely. That, though, hasn't prevented the debate descending into the usual partisan mud-slinging. The lessons of history are rarely learned but I'm old enough to remember very well Shirley Williams' time as Labour Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection from 1974 to 1976. Her policies focused on combating inflation through statutory price controls, profit margin caps on manufacturers, and taxpayer...

Andy Burnham's bid to win the Makerfield by-election has focused a lot of attention on 'Manchesterism', but another big regional city once set the trend nationally. I refer, of course, to Birmingham, Britain's second city in terms of population and geographic size. This title is hotly-contested by Manchester, both in terms of its metropolitan size and its economic and cultural importance. However, there is no doubt that, historically at least, Birmingham was hugely influential in the building of the civic and municipal structure of modern Britain. While the same argument can legitimately be made for Manchester, it was undoubtedly the election of Joseph Chamberlain as Mayor of Birmingham in 1873 that gave his city the edge. Chamberlain, a radical Liberal, spearheaded what was dubbed the "gas and water socialism" movement, bringing these vital utilities into public ownership. The profits were reinvested into slum clearance, the construction of paved roads, parks...

Rarely can an unassuming working class suburb in the North West of England have witnessed such a media frenzy. Now that its sitting MP, Josh Simons, has applied to join the Chiltern Hundreds (a Westminster legal fiction meaning, in everyday parlance, he's tendered his resignation from the House of Commons), the former pit village of Makerfield near Wigan in Greater Manchester has become the epicentre of the British political universe. Having only just returned a full complement of Reform councillors in the recent local elections, the departure of its Labour MP will throw all the pieces of the political jigsaw up in the air once more. But not only at the local level; the fact that the seat is due to be contested by none other than Andy Burnham, a local lad and popular incumbent Mayor of Manchester, has lent the by-election national significance. As a consequence, the media has piled into town and will be pestering folk for soundbites for weeks to come as they attempt to dodge the tr...

How much do good looks count when it comes to political leadership? I've been pondering this apparently frivolous question since seeing Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, deftly handling the controversy surrounding his robust defence of granting permission for the hantavirus-struck cruise ship, MV Hondius, to dock in Tenerife. He is an astute political operator, intelligent, calm and charming, but he is helped by also being strikingly good-looking. Standing at just over 6' 2" tall, he has the same suave, relaxed Gary Cooper-esque bearing that Barack Obama also benefitted from. Frankly, neither Keir Starmer nor Wes Streeting enjoys such a physical advantage, whereas Andy Burnham (although a relatively petite 5' 10") clearly does. Sánchez's cool charisma stood in stark contrast to the bumbling performance of the rightwing President of the Canarian government, Fernando Clavijo - a far less physically appealing man, to put it politely. So, in the UK context, w...