OPINION PIECES
I'm unashamedly anti-Tory. Prepare for some vitriol!
We could be heading for a US-UK trade deal that's far worse than TTIP
With the demise of the toxic Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), you’d be forgiven for thinking we can all breathe easy, safe in the knowledge that our environment, food, public health, NHS and democratic sovereignty are no longer under threat.
Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.
How Lords who don't even bother to speak or vote are claiming millions in expenses
If anything underlines the need for House of Lords reform it is the revelation that peers who haven’t even spoken in the House for a year have claimed nearly £1.3m in expenses.
The findings, released by the Electoral Reform Society, show that 115 lords failed to speak at all in the 2016-17 session yet still claimed an average £11,091 each. And 18 others didn’t even vote yet claimed £93,162. Now that’s taking the peers.
Why Jeremy Corbyn was right to go to Glastonbury instead of Armed Forces Day
Jeremy Corbyn has been slammed in the right-wing press for choosing to appear at Glastonbury rather than Armed Forces Day events.
Government prison cuts are getting scary…
So it turns out, according to a new Panorama report, that inmates are in charge of the prison at privately-run HMP Northumberland.
The BBC programme shows shocking footage of prison officers being threatened by weapon-toting inmates, holes in security fences, huge drug stashes in rooms and security alarms that don't work. But what is more shocking, perhaps, is that it we are even surprised that this could be happening.
The worrying militarisation of our schools
Two contrasting videos about life in the British Army are doing the rounds, both released this month. In the first, an Army recruitment advertisement, soldiers are trudging through miserable arctic conditions when one of them starts singing the Dirty Dancing song “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life”.
What five more years of the Tories will actually mean…
Everyone seems to be treating the general election as a foregone conclusion. That is a very dangerous way of thinking because it means we are in danger of handing over our freedom of choice. Not only is the election not a foregone conclusion, but it will be one of the most pivotal moments this century.
If you have occasionally been guilty of saying rather unthought-through mantras about Jeremy Corbyn in the past such as that he is 'unelectable' or 'dangerous' you really should read this article - where are these ideas, phrases actually coming from?
My piece in The Independent about Corbyn's position following the Chilcot report. Can we all stop calling him unelectable now?
So it’s finally official. Blair’s reasons for invading Iraq were all li.... ah, sorry, I can’t use that word… were all “presented with a certainty that was not justified”.
Would Corbyn be better forming his own party?
It was bad news that Jeremy Corbyn was allowed to stand in the Labour leadership race. And I say that as a genuine Corbyn supporter.
Osborne said it was a budget for the next generation, but that future looks more like Victorian Britain than a modern one
George Osborne said his 2016 budget was putting “the next generation first” and making Britain “fit for the future”.
Well let’s take him at face value and have a look at that.
The dangers of TTIP on the NHS
Pressure to push through the controversial EU-US trade deal, TTIP, was ramped up this week as Barack Obama urged EU countries to push forwards with negotiations.
LEE WILLIAMS
Freelance journalist and writer.
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