The Mirror Crack'd

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...

Sir Keir Starmer has just delivered what was billed as 'the speech of his life' - it landed like the proverbial lead balloon. What Starmer has obviously failed to grasp is that he is the problem. Never an inspiring public speaker at the best of times, no amount of oratorical, rhetorical flourish could have come to his rescue on this occasion. To put it crudely, you can't polish a turd, although he tried valliantly this morning to roll it in glitter. He seems to feel that because in 2024 he delivered a Labour government for the first time in fourteen years - admittedly no mean feat after their trouncing in 2019 - on a slogan of 'change', he had made good on his side of the bargain with the British people and in 2026 it's 'job done'. This is utterly delusional; how long can he expect the British people to wait for a sign that the good times might actually roll? Pleading Brexit, Ukraine, Covid and now the Middle East, while perfectly valid, simply won'...