Novara Live: Tory Sleaze Row Gathers Pace
Keir Starmer has called on the PM to launch a full inquiry into Greensill and said "sleaze is now at heart of this Tory government". Will the allegations stick?
Tag: tories
Downstream: ‘Dodgy Dave’? the Facts on the Greensill Saga. Interview with Gabriel Pogrund
Political scandal no longer seems to cut through, but is the unfolding saga around Max Greensill and David Cameron an exception? On this week’s Downstream Aaron Bastani is joined by Sunday Times journalist Gabriel Pogrund to discuss the implications of a story which is only set to grow.
Feature: Changing Attitudes to Death Could Help Us Create a Fairer Society
Sophie K Rosa
Coronavirus has changed the way we grieve and forced more people to confront the reality of death. Is this an opportunity to radically transform our relationship to mortality? Sophie K Rosa reports.
Downstream: Why the Tories Keep Winning. Interview With Sam Earle
Excluding Tony Blair’s back-to-back victories, the Conservative Party has governed the UK for all but 18 of the last 100 years. While the media often presents elections as Labour’s to lose, the truth is that Britain is a one party state which occasionally lets the other side have a go in the interest of fairness. […]
Opinion: Being an Opportunist Has Worked Well for Johnson. Why Not for Starmer?
Samuel Earle
Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer share a willingness to forgo principles in order to win votes. In the second piece of a new series on the Tories and how they hold on to power, Samuel Earle explains why this strategy is working for one but not the other.
Opinion: Even Without the ‘Vaccine Bounce’, Boris Johnson Would Still Be Winning
Samuel Earle
Boris Johnson's catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic has led Britain to one of the highest death rates per capita in the world. But it hasn't lost him voters. In fact, he’s gained new ones. In the first of a new series on the Tories and power, Samuel Earle looks at how the prime minister gets away with it.
Analysis: How We Win: The State
James Schneider
If we aren’t preparing to use power, we are preparing to have it used against us. The left needs a state strategy, starting with municipal socialism to lay the groundwork for a national programme.
Novara Live: What’s in Rishi Sunak’s Budget?
Does Rishi Sunak's budget speech show the Tories have finally dumped Osbornomics to instead channel John McDonnell?
Novara Live: Starmer Outflanked by Tories on Corporation Tax
Labour have confirmed that if Rishi Sunak raises corporation tax at next week's budget, they will vote against it.
Opinion: Labour and the Tories Have Reduced Veterans to Instruments in the Culture War
Joe Glenton
Veterans like Joe Glenton are often instrumentalised by culture war politicians. Labour's provisional new PR strategy and the death of Captain Tom have made this clearer than ever.
Downstream: Why Has Britain Failed on Covid? Richard Horton
A year after the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic, with Britain enduring more than a 100,000 deaths since, a number of major questions remain unanswered. Why was the response of the UK among the worst in the world? How is it possible that the death toll of countries in Europe and North America […]
Opinion: Think the Tories Can’t Possibly Paint Britain’s Pandemic Response As a Triumph? Think Again
Aaron Bastani
From the failures of WW2 to the horrors of empire, Britain is incapable of an honest reckoning with its history. There’s no reason to think that in a decade's time, Covid-19 won't just be another notch in a record of national self-delusion, argues Aaron Bastani.
The Bastani Factor: Boris Johnson Ends ‘War on Woke?!’
On Wednesday, shortly after Joe Biden was inaugurated as President of the United States, Boris Johnson said there was ‘nothing wrong’ with being ‘woke’. Yet the signature of the Tories in recent years has been a ‘war on woke’, with MPs and media outriders attacking ideas of social and economic equality while using the term. […]
The Bastani Factor: “This Is the Worst Interview I’ve Ever Seen With a Politician”
Speaking to Good Morning Britain, Health Secretary Matt Hancock gave the worst interview by a politician Aaron Bastani has ever seen. What does it say when after 100,000 people have died a leading politician can get away with such a performance?
The Bastani Factor: Britain Is Now Fyre Festival
During the Covid pandemic the failures of Britain’s model have become painfully clear, from 80,000 deaths to a test and trace system which isn’t good enough. The latest shambles on free school meals demonstrates that these aren’t the result of a few bad individuals, or random mistakes, but the result of forty years of privatisation […]
The Year in Review
At the turn of the decade nearly 12 months ago, some said that we were on the verge of entering a new Roaring ’20s. How prescient they turned out to be. One pandemic and a global economic freefall later, all the assumptions we started out with in January have turned to dust. In their place […]
Downstream: Can Britain Become an ‘Innovation Superpower’ After Brexit? Aaron Bastani Meets David Edgerton
For Brexiteers Britain’s departure from the EU offers a shot at national renewal, with the country once more becoming a free trade and innovation superpower. But how likely is that, and are the Tories really serious about a break with the politics of the last 40 years? Aaron Bastani interviews Professor David Edgerton, author of […]
Opinion: Liberals Are Obsessed With Dominic Cummings Because It Lets Them Pretend Everything Else is OK
Aaron Bastani
In a world set to be increasingly defined by climate change, inequality, technological innovation and a crisis of elderly care, perceiving political outcomes as the result of bad people making bad decisions is an easy way out, argues Aaron Bastani.