It seems the Green Party hasn’t read the conclusions of any of the official reports into the scandal-ridden maternity units at Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford, or East Kent. Yesterday, an apparent Green Party policy circulated on social media, which expressed concern at the increasing incidence of “medical intervention” in childbirth. Or, put another way: an anxiety about falling rates of so-called normal births. The language of “normal” or “natural” births was formally dropped by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) in 2017. But according to 2012 guidance – produced by RCM, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), and the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) – these births were defined as those “without induction, without the use of instruments, not… ...

On the evening of Monday 3 June, British politics changed. Nigel Farage did not only announce that he would be standing as Reform UK’s candidate in Clacton – he may well fail – and that he was taking over from Richard Tice as party leader but he raised the flag of open political revolt. He wants to replace the Conservatives. Because of the electoral system that will be very difficult but they should, frankly, be terrified. It would be quite a political irony if the ultimate victim of the Brexit revolt was the Conservative Party. In his stump speech to journalists in south London – and Farage, whatever you think of him, remains one of the best political communicators in the ...

Last week, the polling company JL Partners published “Red Votes, Blue Values”, a poll of 2,000 voters. The public is closer to the Conservatives in attitudes towards policy but it is weary of them and is backing Labour as the default alternative. Forty per cent of the party lead is made up of small-c conservative voters. The electoral centre ground is conservative on values and radical on the economy. Back in 2010, when the campaign group Blue Labour first began, a small group of us met in the office of the Labour MP Jon Cruddas for a presentation by Pat Dade, a marketing strategist who ran Cultural Dynamics. He produced the same analysis. Majority opinion in the country was radical on ...

Why is he always grinning? There is something manic and unsettling about the relentless good cheer with which Ed Davey is waging his election campaign. This week, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has embarked on a series of increasingly perilous stunts. On Tuesday he went paddle-boarding on Lake Windermere, during which he fell off said paddle board five times in 15 minutes. Images of Davey bobbing about in the water with his life jacket riding over his chin was a low point in the lofty history of British liberalism. On Wednesday he cycled down a steep road in the Welsh town of Knighton, giggling as he stretched out his legs either side of the pedals. On Thursday he squeezed ...

“When someone shows who they are, believe them,” said Maya Angelou. Yesterday, the hard right of Labour revealed itself as it purged a succession of left candidates. Why is this happening and what does it mean not just for Labour but for the country? To understand we must go back to 2015 when, seemingly against all the odds, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader. It’s unclear whether anyone has truly fathomed the enormity of that event for British politics and its repercussions now and possibly long into the future. Back then, in these pages, I stated that the radical and youthful political wave that created Corbynism was hugely encouraging. But unfortunately Corbyn, as surfer, never had the leadership skills to seize ...

As Diane Abbott stood outside Hackney Town Hall to declare she would stand whatever the party decided, and as Lloyd Russell-Moyle received word that an eight-year old complaint, which he could not challenge in time, meant he would be barred from standing, Jeremy Corbyn belatedly appeared in a small red-brick community centre, green suit falling off his shoulders, shirt untucked, in Islington North to launch his campaign to be the area’s independent MP. Corbyn was a few steps ahead of his fallen comrades. He announced his much-predicted independent candidacy last Friday before being immediately expelled from the party. The posters at his launch were still Labour-red, but there were splashes of green and a promise to be an “independent voice for ...

Keir Starmer’s team swooped on the party’s left last night. Three candidates from that faction have reportedly been banned from standing: Diane Abbott, Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Faiza Shaheen. Meanwhile loyalists such as Labour Together think tanker Josh Simons and Rachel Reeves’s former senior aide Heather Iqbal have been handed plumb seats. Luke Akehurst, a much-reviled National Executive Committee (NEC) member on the party’s right has been selected in North Durham. The left has been squashed; the right elevated. Yet again. The leadership can do this because the NEC, on which Starmer’s supporters have a majority, has the power to impose candidates during the short campaign. If you are surprised at his ruthlessness then you haven’t been watching. His project is defined ...

Pat Cullen – the general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) – has resigned today and announced her plan to stand for Sinn Féin in the upcoming election. “After much consideration, I have decided that now is the right time for me to step forward into the political arena to champion the issues and opportunities for the community I love,” she said. This is significant: Cullen oversaw the largest nurses’ strike in history; is one of the country’s most prominent trade union leaders; and intends to stand in the most marginal constituency in the United Kingdom – Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Sinn Féin beat the Ulster Unionist Party by just 57 votes in 2019). The strikes ...