Tag Archives: Politics

Think out-of-town shopping centres are a thing of the past? Take a look at Rushden Lakes and despair

Posted on December 4, 2016 by Alex Grant

The river Nene – the slowest-flowing river in England, and its tenth-longest – meanders through Northamptonshire past water meadows and dozens of former gravel pits, long ago flooded and now a nationally important habitat for wetland birds. Northamptonshire’s an underrated … Continue reading →

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Five reasons why cutting the number of MPs from 650 to 600 is a bad idea – and one silver lining

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Alex Grant

Constituency boundary changes don’t just matter to map anoraks or political obsessives (I’m a bit of both). And the proposals won’t just mean a cull of MPs: they will reshape our politics by disenfranchising millions of voters. With no suggestion … Continue reading →

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Politicians should get out of Westminster for its restoration – and stay out

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Alex Grant

News that the Palace of Westminster will be out of bounds for six years for the £4bn mother of all restorations has provoked a stream of predictable responses. A strange coalition of metropolitan Guardianistas like John Harris, nationalists and devolutionists … Continue reading →

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Brexit is not a working class revolt, or a resurgence of racists. It was an Oldie rebellion, pure and simple

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Alex Grant

One Saturday morning a few weeks before the referendum there were two Vote Leave stalls on the streets of Thrapston, the Northamptonshire market town a few miles from my home. I was in a hurry, buying eggs and vegetables at … Continue reading →

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The demise of Boris Johnson – the Quintin Hogg of our times – shows that the age of Balliol superiority is now over

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Alex Grant

The spectacular collapse of Boris Johnson’s Prime Ministerial hopes earlier today have a striking historical parallel. Boris is not – and never has been – the Donald Trump or Winston Churchill of contemporary British politics, or even the Falstaff or … Continue reading →

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How working the night shift alongside European migrants made me more determined to vote to stay in the EU, not less

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Alex Grant

For two months in the run-up to Christmas 2015 I worked the night shift at a Royal Mail sorting office in Peterborough. Media commentators are often quick to appoint themselves as experts on the labour market, but most have never … Continue reading →

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A month on, Sadiq Khan’s victory in London no longer looks mould-breaking. In fact it’s a welcome return to politics as usual

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Alex Grant

A month on, how mould-breaking does Sadiq Khan’s election as mayor of London feel? Yes, it was a historic moment: the first time that a Muslim was elected as mayor of a western capital city. The message it sends to … Continue reading →

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Inside the planning committee: it’s not enough to say it’s all fair and impartial. You have to show it is, too

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Alex Grant

What goes on at Town hall planning committees these days? In theory it works like this. A committee of about a dozen councillors, politically balanced to match the composition of the council as a whole, assesses planning applications based on … Continue reading →

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Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Leader may be frightening indeed. But Corbyn as Party Martyr would be even worse

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Alex Grant

I like Jeremy Corbyn. I met him once on a dark railway platform in Blackpool, catching a train back to London towards the end of a Labour conference in the early noughties, and we got talking. Although I was a … Continue reading →

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Jeremy Hutchinson’s life tells us why civil liberties matter – and how Labour was largely to blame for their erosion

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Alex Grant

Just occasionally, you meet someone with a life story so extraordinary that you pinch yourself as you hear it. Jeremy Hutchinson – one of Britain’s leading criminal barristers throughout the 1960s and 1970s, former chairman of the Tate Gallery, former … Continue reading →

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