tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50948062009-12-02T15:17:25.500ZGAUCHEPaul Andersonnoreply@blogger.comBlogger564125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-76743858050181134632009-11-26T00:24:00.004Z2009-11-26T01:05:24.275ZINTO THE HOME STRAIGHTPaul Anderson, Tribune column, 27 November 2009So here we are, with just six months left. The party conferences and the Queen’s Speech have come and gone, and judgment day is looming. There doesn’t have to be a general election before 3 June next year, but just about everyone agrees that it will be on 6 May, the same date as the local elections.I don’t demur on that – but Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-75264405504517284212009-10-31T01:13:00.001Z2009-10-31T01:25:57.469ZTHE SURVEILLANCE STATE IS NOTHING NEWPaul Anderson, Tribune column, 30 October 2009I meant to write about Christopher Andrew’s authorised centenary history of the security service, MI5, The Defence of the Realm, in my last column – but my copy of the book turned up late because of the postal strikes. And because I’m a busy man and it’s more than 1,000 pages (and that’s not counting the index), I’Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-37547787709633141692009-10-04T11:58:00.002+01:002009-10-04T12:05:35.155+01:00SOMETHING MIGHT JUST TURN UPPaul Anderson, Tribune column, 2 October 2009Every ambitious young journalist has a dream job or five, and in my early 20s, my top target was editor of the New Statesman. I didn’t get there de jure but did de facto, because, after three years as deputy editor of the magazine, I took the chair for six issues in the interregnum between Steve Platt and Ian Hargreaves whenPaul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-22271616234174891892009-09-15T23:52:00.002+01:002009-09-16T01:02:09.402+01:00SIGNS OF LIFEPaul Anderson writes:I wouldn't claim that either Peter Mandelson's speech at the LSE on Monday or Gordon Brown's strangely halting oration at the TUC on Tuesday mark the end of Labour's woes, but they are at least an intellectual el-Alamein. There's rather more fight left than I thought in what had appeared over the summer to be the lifeless corpse of New Labour -- and I'm beginningPaul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-57272437961518542842009-09-10T14:18:00.002+01:002009-09-10T14:23:14.300+01:00SEVENTY YEARS ON - 2Paul Anderson writes:I was going to go off on one on Seumas Milne's piece defending the Hitler-Stalin pact in the Guardian today, but Norm has done it already. Someone ought to republish Victor Gollancz's collection Betrayal of the Left ASAP.Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-51792500063562185262009-09-07T17:28:00.001+01:002009-09-07T17:30:02.920+01:00SEVENTY YEARS ONPaul Anderson writes:There's an excellent piece by Ian Aitken in Tribune here on the outbreak of the second world war.Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-74767968701222578992009-09-06T19:09:00.002+01:002009-09-06T20:24:37.328+01:00OUT AND ABOUT - 1Paul Anderson writes:I spent this afternoon in a field in south Norfolk with some friends at the annual Burston school strike rally. It's a commemoration of an heroic struggle for working-class education: two socialist teachers were fired in 1914 by the local school board (dominated by farmers) for objecting to their pupils being taken out of school to work -- so they set up an Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-83164716626778208782009-09-03T00:11:00.000+01:002009-09-03T00:12:30.280+01:00ADMIT IT: IT COULD BE AS BAD AS 1979Paul Anderson, Tribune column, 4 September 2009 And so – we’re into the final straight. This autumn’s political conferences mark the beginning of a very long election campaign that looks likely to end with Labour being defeated next spring. All right, it’s not over until it’s over, you never know what might turn up, and all that. But the Tory lead in the Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-22791276580050961072009-08-19T00:19:00.004+01:002009-09-03T00:14:55.877+01:00BROWNISMPaul Anderson writes:This piece in the Guardian by Tom Clark makes some pertinent points about what Brown is about: efficiency and redistribution to the poorest. And he's right that Brown has not articulated it explicitly – though I doubt that it would inspire anyone even if it were, so narrow is the Brown "vision".STUDENTS ARE MORE THAN CUSTOMERSPaul Anderson, Tribune column, 9 August Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-71122334932184662812009-07-31T13:29:00.003+01:002009-07-31T13:41:35.856+01:00BOBBY ROBSON'S BLUE-AND-WHITE ARMYPaul Anderson writes:I'm too young to remember Ipswich winning the league under Alf Ramsey — but Bobby Robson's teams winning the FA and UEFA cups were defining moments of my youth. We've been useless since. RIP.Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-64385996133735833242009-07-19T23:51:00.002+01:002009-07-20T00:00:02.345+01:00A KEY TEST FOR LABOURPaul Anderson, Tribune column 10 July 2009“Hi,” said the American woman on the other end of the phone. “Are you Mr Anderson?” “Yes,” I said, expecting an offer of car insurance or the threat of a writ. I was wrong. “Hi,” she went on. “I’m Myleen and I’m calling from Labour Party headquarters. Are you available to assist in the Norwich North campaign?”At which point I fell offPaul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-2164110968758192222009-06-15T00:21:00.002+01:002009-06-15T00:29:19.960+01:00CHARLES CLARKE ON LABOUR'S PREDICAMENTPaul Anderson writes:The former home secretary's interview with Andrew Neil on the BBC News Channel on Saturday night was widely trailed but only selectively quoted in the papers – and watched by almost no one. But it's worth watching in full here: Clarke says plenty of very sensible things about where Labour should go politically (greenery, constitutional Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-54154020349264893742009-06-11T17:33:00.002+01:002009-06-11T17:38:26.665+01:00BROWN MUST STAY TO GET RID OF EXPENSES FIDDLERSPaul Anderson, Tribune column, 12 June 2009Where do you start? It’s difficult to think of a more depressing time for Labour supporters since – well, I was going to say the weeks after Labour lost the 1992 general election, but this is much worse. Labour’s failure in 1992 was like your team losing in the cup final. This is like watching the Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-73046509870192277322009-06-05T11:10:00.003+01:002009-06-05T11:52:29.230+01:00THEY'LL NONE OF THEM BE MISSEDPaul Anderson writes:A small point, but an important one, about the government resignations that have rocked Gordon Brown into meltdown. So far (as of 11.30am Friday 5 June), apart from Patricia Hewitt and John Hutton, all of them appear to have been severely compromised by the Daily Telegraph's expenses revelations. And now they have resigned, with most of them Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-41346131916153366352009-06-04T09:13:00.000+01:002009-06-04T09:14:21.854+01:00HEADLESS CHICKENS SHOOTING THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT - 456Paul Anderson writes:The current “febrile atmosphere in Westminster”, as everyone is calling it, is not something I have had the pleasure to witness directly: I’ve been nowhere near parliament for months. But anyone who reads the papers and watches the television news can tell that the Parliamentary Labour Party is in the grip of the most Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-37880828215720398562009-05-21T23:26:00.002+01:002009-05-21T23:52:32.448+01:00SPEED IS OF THE ESSENCE FOR LABOURPaul Anderson writes:The Labour National Executive Committee on Monday threw out the proposal to reopen selections for all sitting MPs who have been reselected to stand again at the next general election – which would have been by far the quickest and most sensible way for the party to lance the boil of the parliamentary expenses scandal, as it would be for the Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-52869083818009773662009-05-16T21:49:00.003+01:002009-05-16T23:34:20.250+01:00RE-OPEN NOMINATIONS NOWPaul Anderson writes:The more that has emerged from the Telegraph about MPs' expenses, the clearer it has become that the only way any of the main political parties can hope to recover credibility is to hold new candidate selections in every single seat they hold where the sitting MP has been confirmed as the candidate for the next general election.If Labour's National Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-79898734753224886332009-05-15T22:41:00.000+01:002009-05-15T22:44:05.474+01:00MPS OF ALL PARTIES HAVE BEEN TAKING THE PISSPaul Anderson, Tribune column 15 May 2009It’s that time of year again. I’ve got to sort out my accounts and file a tax return. I spent hours last weekend sifting through invoices, receipts, bank statements and wage slips, working out what to declare to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs about my freelance income and related expenditure for tax year 2008-Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-74598000378583941242009-05-10T00:38:00.004+01:002009-05-10T02:10:19.418+01:00HALLELUJAH, I'M A NEOCON - 2Paul Anderson writes:I discover that my entry on David Miller's disgraceful left-McCarthyite website Neocon Europe, listing supposed "neocons", has been changed after I objected to it.I am now listed as being "not a neoconservative, though he is involved in a number of organisations linked to neoconservatives such as Democratiya and the Euston Manifesto".But there is aPaul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-24229842695317435562009-05-10T00:09:00.002+01:002009-05-10T00:28:17.735+01:00BEST COLUMNIST IN THE COUNTRYPaul Anderson writes:My good friend Padraig Reidy from Index on Censorship and I were talking in the pub about columnists last week, and we concurred after 30 seconds that the best in any UK newspaper is DJ Taylor in the Independent on Sunday.His latest is a gem.He is doing Orwell's "As I Please" better than anyone since Orwell. And I'm not saying that just because IPaul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-81193755012147580172009-05-09T16:05:00.003+01:002009-05-10T00:32:22.574+01:00HOLD ON A MINUTEPaul Anderson writes:OK, I know how bad the MPs' expenses claims look. But £24,000 a year as an allowance for accommodation in central London on the money most of them are on seems to me to be about right.London is bloody expensive. You're not going to get a decent cheap hotel room midweek near Westminster for much less than £120 a night unless you spend hours on the budget hotelsPaul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-38827133378533873622009-05-04T00:46:00.003+01:002009-05-04T00:54:26.777+01:00DEAD CANARIESPaul Anderson writes:I have just been informed of a tragic incident last year in which 65 canaries died of asphyxiation while being transported cruelly from their native habitat in Norfolk. There can be few sights more moving than this:Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-74489648583093962052009-04-30T22:52:00.004+01:002009-05-01T01:07:01.929+01:00HALLELUJAH, I'M A NEO-CON!Paul Anderson writes:I find that I am on a blacklist here of supposed "neo-conservatives". The perpetrator, David Miller, professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde, is an utter disgrace.Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-56251860032643438442009-04-16T15:01:00.002+01:002009-04-16T15:06:54.345+01:00TIME FOR LABOUR TO KISS SPIN GOODBYEPaul Anderson, Tribune column, 17 April 2009And there I was thinking the worst was over… As Neil Kinnock would have put it in his pomp, it is difficult to exaggerate how completely, totally and utterly Derek Draper and Damian McBride have let down the Labour Party.OK, there are questions about how the creepy Tory blogger Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes, got holdPaul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5094806.post-92162073230848343442009-04-16T14:59:00.002+01:002009-04-16T22:48:34.006+01:00MULLIN TELLS IT AS IT ISPaul Anderson, Tribune column, 20 March 2009Most political memoirs and diaries are deeply disappointing. I know, because I’ve ploughed through hundreds of them in the past 25 years in the course of everyday political journalism and historical research.The best – the diaries of Richard Crossman, Barbara Castle and Tony Benn on the Labour governments of the 1960s and 1970s, Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0