The main aim of Miliband’s speech today: expose the extent of...
If the general election in May 2015 is fought on who is best placed to deal with the deficit, then the Labour party will lose. Both Labour and the Tories know this. Miliband will focus on living...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Peshawar massacre: Pakistan’s problems with the Taliban...
Tuesday was a hard day to absorb the news. All year I’ve seen some really horrible videos, mostly by ISIS, showing men being shot in the back of their heads, throats slit or being buried in mass...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Muslims should embrace free speech, even if it includes insults to their...
Late last year I was invited to speak at the LSE Islamic Society on Islamophobia and the media. Rather than preach to the converted, I decide to challenge my audience by making the case for more free...
View ArticleWhy do liberals find it so hard to persuade Muslims about free speech?
Yesterday evening I was invited by the Guardian to debate the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and where we go from here. I wanted to make a series of coherent points in a mini-speech but it never happened, so...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the Paris attacks are likely to change the approach of western...
The New York Times has published an extraordinary account of how the two terrorists who burst into Charlie Hebdo’s office became radicalised. Here are a few thoughts from the article, and more...
View ArticleClik here to view.
No, watching ISIS videos does NOT make you complicit in its terrorism
If you watch ISIS’s videos you are complicit in its terrorism, says Nesrine Malik at the Guardian. Sorry, but this is ludicrous for various reasons. I have watched a fair amount of ISIS videos,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
We badly screwed up in Libya, and it’s time to admit that
There are usually two kinds of people who like to commentate on foreign policy matters: those who oppose any military ‘intervention’ in the affairs of other countries; and those who have no problems...
View ArticleWhat Jihadi John and CAGE said yesterday about how people are ‘driven...
Imagine this scenario. A white atheist kills a Muslim couple in cold blood. The media speculates endlessly about the “factors” that drove him to kill them: apparently he had a parking dispute with...
View ArticleWhy Amnesty (or any other proper human rights org) couldn’t work with...
Amnesty International UK say they no longer consider it appropriate to share a platform with CAGE after their recent comments. About time. Last week, Cage director Asim Qureshi was invited on to the...
View ArticleHow Muslims are smeared as ‘entryists’ in newspapers without reason
There is no other minority group in the UK like Muslims that you can make crass and bigoted generalisations about, and get away with it. Perhaps Roma people, but they are rarely written about as much....
View ArticleHow the left got duped by the SNP on austerity, but will ignore it anyway
What would you rather have: 1) a party that tells you what you want to hear and does something different, or 2) one that tells you straight about what its going to do? Most people, I suspect, would...
View ArticleTwo big reasons a Tory-Lib Dem coalition is unlikely after this election
Nick Clegg clearly wants another coalition with the Conservatives. And I’m fairly sure Cameron recognises the necessity of carrying on their tolerable relationship. And a lot of people in Westminster...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is Labour making a big (long term) mistake by rejecting “any”...
The Labour leadership have finally settled on a clear line on the SNP. Assuming that Cameron cannot cobble together a majority on 8th May and has to resign, that gives Ed Miliband his turn at forming...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Memo to Labour: David Cameron did not win this election from the centre ground
Tony Blair writes today: “the route to the summit lies through the centre ground”. We expected this right? Tony Blair is becoming famous for repeating himself all the time. There’s also one glaring...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What exactly is Jim Murphy’s case for staying on leader of Scottish...
Despite losing his seat in Westminster, Jim Murphy is trying to hang on as leader of Scottish Labour. I find this astonishing. Late last year, when he became leader, he said they could hang on to most...
View ArticleThe mistakes I made and what I learnt from the election
A lot of people made mistakes in predicting outcomes in the 2015 General Election, mostly because the polling was so out of sync with the eventual result. I made predictions based on polling too, and...
View ArticleVideo: My talk at Cambridge Labour Club on mistakes and the future of the party
This week I was kindly invited by the Cambridge Universities Labour Club for a talk on where Labour goes from here. In the initial part I talk about the wrong assumptions I made in the run up to the...
View Article93% of Immigrants Are Proud To Live In Britain, Nearly 9 out of 10 Respect...
This came to my inbox last night, and I think the findings are worth sharing in full. Important to note, this was commissioned by a centre-right group, not a leftwing group. Survation, on behalf of...
View ArticleDo the Tories have a mandate for their policies? Erm…
Seamus Milne says: Opposition to all this [austerity] has barely begun. But there’s no democratic reason for people to accept it. The Tories were elected by fewer than 37% of voters. Only 24% of those...
View Article
