Lurch, according to my dictionary, is an archaic or dialect intransitive verb, which means ‘to prowl or steal about suspiciously’. Seemingly its sole use in twenty-first century English is to provide Tories with an all-purpose pejorative designation for any identifiable outbreak of milquetoast social democracy inside the Labour Party. Labour, you see, never moves to the

The latest dividing line from the man who keeps thinking of politics as his own personal playground battle is to say the Tories would enjoy austerity. The polls warn us that a hung parliament, or thanks to the anti-English and anti-Tory bias in our electoral system a Labour minority govt ( the favourite of every Lib Dem except perhaps Nick Clegg - whose tried to work with Brown once a learnt the h...

Whilst I was not surprised about the way the British establishment and the mainstream media (MSM) dealt with the death of Michael Foot, I was a little put out by the soft ride some of the left gave to the death of this political scoundrel. There is one certainty about the English upper middle classes, no matter how much a member of this class may periodically wave a radical wand, they instinctivel...

Forgot to mention the late fringe meeting, arranged by Positif Politics in my conference round-up. Speaker was Gerry Holtham, who has a nicely relaxed manner, as well as being expert on how Treasury funding is allocated to the devolved nations and the English regions. There were so many questions I'd like to have asked. Got in just one. Top table was too big for a fringe meeting. It should ne...

Labour councillors join Respect “On Friday outside the House of Commons jack-booted skinhead thugs of the English Defence League paraded with banners saying ‘Close the East London Mosque Now’ and ‘Ban the Burkha’,” said George Galloway at a press conference in Brick Lane yesterday. “This is where the witch-hunt launched by Jim Fitzpatrick last summer again...

A year and a half ago I wrote about English PCTs weighing and measuring children and sending letters to parents telling them if their child is classed as obese on the fundamentally flawed BMI chart. Back then I said: The parents getting the “very overweight” letter will presumably put their child on a diet and the parents

Good news. RDAs have failed to narrow the gap between richer and poorer regions, have often got in the way of private sector led growth and development, have failed to deliver good transport systems and have been very bureaucratic. I look forward to their abolition, and hope we will save some money on all the

A lecture delivered by Rt. Hon. John Denham MP Tonight I want to discuss England and Englishness. And how we develop and celebrate a modern English identity. And I want to do this from a particular point of view: from a political centre-left perspective. It’s quite a long time, thank goodness, since it was the discussion of identity was

Last night I listened to this podcast, in which Patrick Crozier interviews our own Michael Jennings, globetrotter extraordinaire, about how the English Premier League (i.e. soccer) is followed with a passion in faraway countries of which most English people know very little, and of which many English soccer fans would be rather scornful, if they gave them any thought. Points made ( recycling (and ...

Support for an English Parliament has grown from 18% to 29% in the past 10 years, according to a survey.