A mural, a wreath and a speech. A rumbling argument about defining antisemitism in order to tackle it. None of these arrived unheralded this summer, but are part of questions that have dogged Labour since Corbyn became leader in 2015, such as: do some in the party engage in antisemitism? Does the leader have a […]

I started this before the polls began closing, I’ve finished it just now, at 6.45am and can’t bring myself to check that the final votes are declared. I won’t look until I wake up in a few hours. I’ve not slept so these are slightly rambling thoughts but hopefully they express what’s intended. Every radical period […]

“Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.” – Carl Schmit (Nazi jurist and hipster constitutional theorist, writing in 1922) “Nazis? I hate Nazis” – Indiana Jones Constitutions restrain politics and politicians. That’s what they’re for – to set out the authority for using and limiting power. Sovereignty expresses that power, who gets to use […]

A slightly rambling perspective on what is going on at the moment. The short answer – “I’ve no idea but I’m scared”. I’m either getting better or just resorting to academic comfort food, but I’ve been listening to David W Blight’s Open Yale series of lectures on the US Civil War and Reconciliation. I do […]

It’s all over. Six years of reading headlines, mistakenly catching my name and wondering what I’m being blamed for are done. From tomorrow, anything the Prime Minister does will feature the initials TM and not my own. Tributes were paid to David Cameron as he chaired his last Cabinet meeting. Apparently it featured “four rounds […]

I can’t write about politics this week without mentioning the death of Jo Cox. By any definition this was an intensely political act, an assassination, regardless of the state of the killer’s mental health. The human tragedy in the murder or a fiercely intelligent and engaged young mother who served others with an NGO then […]

The glass was still on the pavements. I knew it was bad, my parents’ furtive grim looks to each other, fearful, unsure what to expect, made that clear. Yet somehow the glittering crystalline streets of our town remained magical to me. I was seven.  Elise was three years older and knew better than I did […]