Briefings

Renew vs. Farage & Vote Leave vs. Boris

Clarke's Comment As Labour's bin-fire of factionalism continues to smoulder, the Conservatives, seemingly jealous of the attention, have reminded us that they are no slouches at infighting and are now publicly indulging themselves at the expense of the country in the middle of a pandemic. Dominic Cummings' unelected coterie of Vote Leave campaigners in No.10 have for months been jostling...

Published on 12 Nov 2020

Democalypse 2020

Clarke's Comment Good Morning! By the time you read this, the US may have a brand new President. I'm joking, of course. The controversial decision to hire Sesame Street's Count Von Count as election supremo has proved ill thought-out. A strong case could be made for outsourcing the job to India, by the way who, impressively, manage to count 600m votes...

Published on 05 Nov 2020

Renew's Special Double-Length Bonus Briefing

Clarke's Comment This week we have a huge amount to share and discuss, so make a cup of tea, get comfy and settle in...Coming up: Statement on Corbyn and the EHRC Report Renew's Top Secret new campaign event Renew's meals for schoolchildren at Christmas Special New Regular Feature - 'Data Corner' New Renew National Survey Statement on Corbyn and the...

Published on 29 Oct 2020

The Currency Formerly Known As Sterling

Clarke's Comment With thanks to the Financial Times As we know, the UK's performance has been extremely poor in terms of both health and economic outcomes. In Europe, only Spain has suffered more deaths and a (marginally) larger drop in GDP. The UK also has an unusually high number of excess deaths, estimated at 67,500, the official 44,436 figure for COVID...

Published on 22 Oct 2020

There's nothing new under the sun

Clarke's Comment A wry glimpse into the past and into the future... It's May 1997. An impossibly distant era of the past. The Soviet Union has collapsed and the Cold War is over. 9/11 has not yet happened. Donald Trump is boasting about the size of the crowd at the 1997 Veteran's Day celebration where he'd acted as an 'associate grand...

Published on 16 Oct 2020

Why Comedy Matters

Clarke's Comment This week, for a change and a brief respite from current affairs (for you and for me), I wanted to write a bit about political comedy and satire. This was prompted by the welcome return of Spitting Image last Saturday and memories of the massive effect the original show had in the 80s and 90s. Annoyingly, the show is...

Published on 08 Oct 2020

The Culture Truce

Clarke's Comment This week we learned of actor Lawrence Fox's plans to launch a new political party, 'Reclaim'. Whilst it's initial stated goals were so vague that it could have been mistaken for a left, right or centre party, Fox's own controversial comments on Question Time and elsewhere give us an idea what he's trying to get at. The subsequent clarification of...

Published on 01 Oct 2020

Tales of the entirely expected.

Clarke's Comment This week we learned that preparations for no-deal Brexit now include turning the garden of England into a lorry park and requiring a special passport (or 'Kent Access Permit', AKA 'Kermit') for the privilege of joining a diesel-choked tail-back there.In addition to the 50,000 customs agent jobs the Government must now create at the taxpayers' expense, we can now look forward...

Published on 24 Sep 2020

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world

Clarke's Comment This month we have been blessed with the release of two books telling the inside stories of life in the inner circles of Jeremy Corbyn and David Cameron. And what fabulously shabby and embarrassing tales they tell in their extremely different ways. 'Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn' by Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire details the...

Published on 18 Sep 2020

Bark at the moon

Clarke's Comment On Wednesday the Government published its Internal Market Bill concerning state aid and the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and onwards to the Republic of Ireland. And it was a corker, contravening our Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, breaking international law, threatening the Good Friday Agreement, undermining the Union and jeopardizing any future trade...

Published on 11 Sep 2020

BRIEFINGS

Renew vs. Farage & Vote Leave vs. Boris

Democalypse 2020

Renew's Special Double-Length Bonus Briefing

The Currency Formerly Known As Sterling

There's nothing new under the sun

Why Comedy Matters

The Culture Truce

Tales of the entirely expected.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world

Bark at the moon