A lot of people understandably talking about 2010 as “an era comes to an end” etc. It is indeed important to look back on 2010. Here’s what I remember about it ... Firstly it’s hard now to recall how widely loathed the last Labour government was at the end of its tenure. It’s fine now to reappraise Gordon Brown on “he’s better than most” grounds. But he was an *incredibly* unpopular figure who inspired absolutely zero enthusiasm in 2010

This is - I really hope - the last thing I'm going to say about Sir Keir for some time. The important thing for people to grasp is that this goes way beyond the factional narrative, the left feeling powerlessness, sour grapes etc (though these things are real enough). 1/ The really tragic thing at the bottom of all this is a brutal political reality. It’s simple stuff. Since Thatcher began to radically shift the country to the right over 40 yrs ago we’ve needed a radical (or at least energetically reformist) Labour gvt just to get back to ... 2/

A massive shame RLB has launched her leadership campaign under the sign of 'progressive patriotism'. This is a really bad thing to do, for 3 main reasons, broadly moral, intellectual & strategic theguardian.com/commentisfree/… The moral objections to an Eng/British nationalism/patriotism are blindingly obvious (Bloody Sunday, Bengal famine, imperialism & slavery in general etc etc) so no point in dwelling on those.