Opinion

The European Research Group, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s hard Brexit think tank, is trying to hide its real views about the UK’s future. The ERG’s 140-page report on post-Brexit Britain has not been published. It was shelved at the last minute because it contains a clear blueprint for the country Rees-Mogg and his fellow travellers want when the UK leaves the EU. It’s a vision familiar to anyone who lived through the 1980s. We know now that Brexit is based on an...

What’s so bad about existing in a fat body? Since I was a teenager I can remember that to be fat was a ‘bad thing’. The people around me, and the media I was exposed to, spoke about it as if it was the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman - right behind being a slag or childless. While opinions may slowly be changing on the latter, it seems to continue to be ingrained in many women’s...

The Liberal Democrats have announced that they are set to launch a new supporters scheme this week in a bid to lure left-leaning Remainers feeling disenfranchised by the two main parties. Dubbed “Momentum for moderates” by leader Vince Cable the initiative will allow nonmembers to vote in a leadership contest which could be contested by non-MPs according to Buzzfeed News. That could allow high-profile figures such as Gina Miller to take over the party and could also appeal to several...

The UK Labour Party's ruling body has this week agreed to adopt in full an international definition of anti-Semitism after being embroiled in a racism crisis since the start of the year. With the media’s cameras primed on yesterday’s meeting in London one wonders how Labour have been left to hose the flames at a time when prominent Tory figures are being openly Islamaphobic and extreme right wing parties continue to foster a hostile culture in Britain. But a brief...

The Prime Minister is a dead woman walking. Her political career is stumbling along like a zombie, getting ever slower and more unsteady. Brexit negotiations are going badly and no-one is happy with the current situation. Theresa May is enduring attacks from her left and her right; her own party sees her as an obstacle and opposition parties are making hay from her failures. Even the shadowy spectre of UKIP has returned and Nigel Farage is once again making a...

By David Rosenberg David Rosenberg is a writer, educator and tour guide, whose family helped faced down fascism as Jewish immigrants in the East End and he now conducts radical historical walks of the East End of London There is a queue of people waiting patiently in line: long forgotten Labour and Conservative figures, one-time respected journalists who have gone sour, barely repentant former racists and warmongers… Now former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has reached the front of the queue....

Chris Hobbs is a former officer of the Metropolitan Police who served for 32 years including targeting gang crime on Operation Trident   It is a sad fact of life that when responding to stabbings or shootings in London, police officers are very often on the scene before paramedics.  A recent example was the horrific gang stabbing of four teenagers in Camberwell which left one of the victims disemboweled. While the hands of police officers are frequently bloodied when tryng to save lives,...

When Pope Francis visits Ireland this weekend he can expect a rather less warm reception than John Paul II had on the last Papal visit to Ireland in 1979. Then over a million people – almost a third of the country’s population at the time – welcomed John Paul II in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Modern Ireland has since woken up to the horrors the Church had committed. This weekend considerably fewer people are expected to attend the mass in Phoenix...

Cash incentives from the government that allow home owners to rent out a spare room at £6,000 a year tax free are creating a short-term let bubble that strangles the availability of lodgings in the city. Back in the day, lodgers, as they were known, often became hugely important members of the family as surrogate aunts or uncles. And even though we certainly must beware of being too nostalgic for a lodging culture, it did provide housing for single people...