New Politics

Over the last few weeks there have been a number of stories about over-enthusiastic whipping.  Around three months ago I was talking to a back bench Conservative MP about what Read more

A while ago, I listened to a debate on Radio 4 about crowd-sourcing which turned out to be considerably less interesting than I had hoped. But I’ve been trying to Read more

Ed Miliband spoke at the weekend to the Progress conference. It hardly won critical acclaim: a New Statesman blog called it the ‘worst speech he has ever delivered’ and John Rentoul wasn’t Read more

A piece a couple of weeks ago by Rachel Sylvester (£)attracted a lot of attention. “Purple and orange: united colours of a coalition” it describes efforts by “New Labour” to Read more

Reform of the upper chamber is a Conservative policy as much as a Liberal Democrat policy. Reform was mentioned in the 2005 Conservative manifesto, and suggestions outlined in a 2008 Read more

You have to feel for the non-Westminster Village public at the moment. In the run-up to the AV referendum, we have seen a great deal of the very worst kind Read more

Momentous news… Well, not really, but I’ve just voted No to AV. I wanted to vote yes, I really did. In December, when I met the Yes campaign, I was Read more

There’s a report today of a legislative change to allow candidates to stand for two parties.  While it’s ostensibly to make it easier for Labour-Co-op candidates (who seem to manage fine Read more

As someone who was involved in writing what have now become the Coalition’s Big Society policies and who stood for the Conservatives at the 2010 General Election, I am – Read more

Big Society is about a belief that people are often best placed to solve local problems and improve their community, when given the right information, tools, and opportunities. And that Read more