Cicero's Songs

I do not know if Jeremy Corbyn subscribes 100% to Marxism as a political agenda. He has certainly praised Karl Marx and suggested that there is much that can be learned from his writings . Even if Mr. Corbyn is only an admirer, rather than an adherent, of Marxism, it opens up a myriad of questions. For whether Mr. Corbyn himself is a Marxist or not, many key players in his emerging leadership team unquestionably are Marxist adherents. Seamus Milne has made statements, for example, which not only advocate Marxism, but the narrow revolutionary offshoot of Marx, Marxism-Leninism. He has made statements which support the position of Stalin , even in his most bloodthirsty policies.  The problem I have here is that there is no government that has been accepted as Marxist that has not launched the most vile crimes against the people they purport to govern. Every single government that has been Marxist has also been a murderous tyranny . The Soviet Union killed an estimated ...

Unlike many in my own party, I remain utterly unreconciled to the majority of the political positions that Jeremy Corbyn has taken in his long and hitherto undistinguished career.  I think that virtually all of his foreign policy positions are not merely mistaken but actively dangerous. Most of his economic ideas are wholly wrong and would fail if enacted. So the fact that on some constitutional positions he is closer to the Liberal Democrats than to his own party does not- and should not- leave most of our party particularly enthusiastic.  Yet the monstering that the new Labour leader has received in the press is too much, too soon. Even though the selection of the Shadow Cabinet was amateur night in the circus and the relations between the Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition and the media have clearly begun with, shall we say, a degree of hostility, I think that the media, especially the right wing press, may be overplaying their hand. The fact is that the sh...

The UK opinion polls are volatile and extremely difficult to read. it has become a cliche that the next election is both uncertain and very open. The only certainty is that the chances of a hung Parliament seem very high. In fact in the face of such uncertainty I can claim no special knowledge ahead of the result. Yet I think that there are actually some significant shifts which are now on the political agenda. There is still a chance that at the last gasp either the Tories or more likely Labour can snatch a single party mandate under the current system. Nevertheless although Labour have an advantage in that it takes far fewer votes for them to win each seat, there remains the imponderable of what impact any SNP surge might have on their overall total. For what its worth, I think that, as in the referendum itself, and as so often before, the SNP confidence will prove highly misplaced, and what might be a quite promising result of -say- 15 seats will be deemed a relative failure and...