Recently, I proposed a few points about the conjuncture in Britain.  None of these were offered in the spirit of hard and fast conclusions, but the aim was to begin to explain the stability and longevity of the coalition government in the face of quite serious social resistance despite its obvious weaknesses.  One factor that [...]

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has finally revealed what was twitching behind his curtain: predistribution.  Essentially, this means, rather than taxing the rich to fund welfare, the government should focus on making work pay more.  This neologism fails in every possible way as a political currency. First, this jarringly technocratic cadence speaks to no ‘common [...]

Stuart Hall, prelate of British cultural studies, has intervened in the Labour Party’s current debates about ‘Englishness’.  He is brief, but nonetheless interesting: “I talked to Cruddas about this … I think I understand his preoccupations rather more than Maurice Glasman’s. In a constituency like Cruddas’s, where you’re fighting the far right, you have to [...]

I was asked a few weeks ago to publish the text of a speech I gave at London’s prestigious Mosaic Rooms.  It was on the subject of The Liberal Defence of Murder, my book on the history of liberal justifications for war and empire, recently released in paperback.  This is the text I prepared, just [...]

Nick Clegg, forever damned to be known as the wolf-eyed replicant of Sheffield Hallam, proposes an emergency tax on the wealthy. What is the emergency, one wonders?  Surely not a deficit of funding for public services.  Nick Clegg has been as avid a cutter, both of services and taxes on the rich, as his Tory [...]