Perceptive article by Seumus Milne in Guardian today: EXTRACT The Syrian crisis operates at several levels. Part of it is a popular uprising against an authoritarian nationalist regime, which still retains significant public support. In the face of sustained repression that uprising has increasingly morphed into what the Arab League mission’s leaked report described as

Attention Schlachtbummelers: here's an eloquent defence of Chinese military prowess, with specific reference to the Sino-Dutch war over Taiwan. I'm not sure the comparison bears as much weight as the article says. A ragtag colonial garrison at the far end...

On Sunday Jenny Willott wrote an article on LDV explaining the reasons behing Lib Dem MPs voting to reject the Lords amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill. However, I’m afraid that, as someone who has been campaigning on this for several months, I am not satisfied with her explanation and think that there are several

I have an article on the Guardian site today on why it's important to continue banker bashing. Bankers are the biggest recipients of government handouts of our time. They also have extraordinary powers over our lives. Why isn't either of this being adequately challenged? But there are more reasons too.

In order to try and stop Israel from doing what it needs to do for survival by preventing Iran from obtaining nukes, the Obama administration announces new sanctions against Iranian financial institutions! The response to this brand of US foreign policy used as an attempt to combat an Islamist regime bent on the total destruction of Israel can be accomplished using these four article headlines: Al...

Stephen Twigg MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, responding to David Cameron’s article on apprenticeships, said:

Did you see that amazing article by a group of pro-EU businesspeople? What about that clever ad paid for by ‘Better To Be In’, the new pro-EU lobby group? Nope, me neither. The reason we haven't seen anything like that is because the pro-European camp in Britain is in total disarray. Like a beaten army, it is withdrawing in a state of confusion, while some diehards stage energetic...

My Labourlist column this week responds to David Miliband's article last week: 

For some time TPC and others have been asking why voters of the Jewish faith have historically had a blind attachment to the Democrat Party! In the context of this article, when I say historically I am using the period of time since Barack Obama ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democrat nomination until today. Looking back at 2008 the fact that college students, engaged in the presidential elec...

If you ignore the mindless tittle-tattle, David Miliband’s New Statesman article raises a genuine issue: what should be the left’s attitude to the state? Although this is seen as “Blairite” it is also consistent with a more radical leftist tradition of scepticism about big government is a longstanding tradition on the left such as guild socialism, anarchism, market socialis...