Category Archives: Uncategorized

Labour is falling into Johnson’s trap. If only it had backed May’s Brexit deal in January

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Alex Grant

I am writing this as Members of Parliament are gathered in Westminster, on the first Saturday since the Falklands conflict of 1982, for yet another “make or break” day of reckoning on Brexit. MPs have just voted narrowly to pass … Continue reading →

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Why the new London Bridge station doesn’t deserve to win the Stirling Prize

Posted on July 28, 2019 by Alex Grant

News that the redeveloped London Bridge station has been shortlisted for the 2019 Stirling Prize will be treated with bemusement by many of its commuters. The reconstruction began in 2013 and was all but finished in 2017. It was officially … Continue reading →

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Northamptonshire may no longer be bankrupt. But splitting the county in two does nothing to solve its identity crisis

Posted on July 22, 2019 by Alex Grant

Brexit, and the ongoing Conservative leadership contest, dominate. Other stories rarely get a hearing. The fact that despite her imminent resignation as Prime Minister, Theresa May remains ahead of Jeremy Corbyn in the personal approval ratings. The ongoing political crisis … Continue reading →

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Critics who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones about anti-semitism. Chaos arrived at Labour HQ before Corbyn did

Posted on July 11, 2019 by Alex Grant

Holocaust denial at Labour party meetings. Jewish members being called “dirty Zionists”, or worse. Party staffers being made to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements to stop them speaking out against the lack of action against the culprits. Interventions by Jeremy Corbyn’s office, … Continue reading →

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People Get Ready: can Labour ever get to implement its economic vision?

Posted on June 28, 2019 by Alex Grant

Away from the noise of Brexit, Labour – and the British Left in general – is buzzing with new economic ideas more loudly than it has for decades. Moving the privatised utilities to a new form of mutual nationalisation is … Continue reading →

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The Rory Stewart I knew: why it was inevitable he’d be knocked out of the Tory leadership contest

Posted on June 21, 2019 by Alex Grant

I’ve been following the Conservative leadership race with uncommon interest: I knew Rory Stewart quite well about 25 years ago. We were students a year apart at Balliol College, Oxford, in the mid-1990s, and though we moved in different circles … Continue reading →

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Don’t believe what Donald Trump says about Sweden. Immigration works well there

Posted on July 21, 2018 by Alex Grant

In the third and final part of a series of posts about modern Sweden (parts one and two can be read here and here), I look at immigration, and the crime problems that many neo-cons claim it has caused. The … Continue reading →

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Sweden, a land where consumer has never been king

Posted on July 15, 2018 by Alex Grant

In the second part of a three-part series of posts about modern Sweden (the first part can be read here), I look at Sweden’s weather, its inhabitants’ supposed shyness, and how Swedish consumers fare when it comes to buying alcohol … Continue reading →

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Sweden: how a ‘dull country’ is still worth living in

Posted on July 14, 2018 by Alex Grant

In the first of a three-part series about modern Sweden, I look at what twentieth and twenty-first century writers have to say, and how the reality of life in Sweden compares to the euphoria or opprobrium that it often provokes. “I … Continue reading →

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A word of advice to the National Trust’s new Director-General: urbanise

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Alex Grant

It’s been an eventful six years for the National Trust’s Director-General Helen Ghosh, who’s announced she’ll be stepping down in April 2018. She’s been constantly bombarded with criticism from right-wing newspapers ever since her appointment  in 2012.  When she suggested … Continue reading →

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