A Free Left Blog

Public, political and institutional discourse can often appear strangely detached from ordinary, everyday life. On identity politics, now a specialist area for me, there was a time when my own everyday life seemed blessedly free of race antagonism. Race/skin colour and ethnicity appeared as a borderline irrelevance that we seemed at least close to transcending. I know that hasn’t been so for many non-white people. However I have heard from some who have said the same. Of course, sometimes I have witnessed or been part of incidents in which these things came to the fore – either conventional racism or racism used as an accusation to attack someone else. On other occasions I have smelt it in the air, palpable and unmistakable, while remaining under the surface, just. However in the last four days race has appeared front and centre in my ordinary life, just being around in London, three times. The first occasion was in a bus station when a scrawny-looking white man appea...

This article was first published on Labour List on 1st November 2011, but notwithstanding the faltering attempts by Labour to make itself out as a 'One Nation' party, I think it is just as relevant now. “Don’t be boring in your Parliament, Dad.” Five-year old Sarah Mullin’s delightful advice to her father Chris on July 18 th 1994 (related from his diary entry for that day), is something that the whole of our political class would do well to bear in mind once in a while. The little girl’s point is even more pertinent for Labour in opposition – as indeed Mullin Snr and his colleagues were in 1994. Being boring should surely be the cardinal sin of mid-term Opposition, when it is difficult enough to get noticed even at the best of times. Yet the blunt, unvarnished truth is that Labour is actually extremely boring at the moment – even for a political geek like me. Polly Toynbee’s comment about the “ curiously bloodless Labour party ” hits the spot. We seem to be d...