Politics

Defection of Mark Reckless to UKIP Serves Notice To The Establishment

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

mark reckless nigel farage ukip defection 3

 

A little less conversation, a little more action.

With the pumped-up remix of the classic song ringing in their ears, UKIP delegates to the party’s 2014 conference in Doncaster stood and cheered and welcomed their latest high profile parliamentary defector: now ex-Conservative MP Mark Reckless.

Say what you want about UKIP’s policies, internal contradictions and some of their wackier personalities, but this does not look like a party of economically left-behind losers or over-the-hill retirees caught up in nostalgia for times past.

As Mark Reckless himself noted, to thunderous applause: “The only nostalgia I see is that of the European bureaucrats as they cling to their fading 1950s vision.”

And in a political landscape where talk is cheap and real progress is rare, all of the action and momentum right now is with UKIP.

Continue reading →

Labour Party Fails To Find Its Soul In Manchester

Samuel Hooper6 Comments

 

The 2014 Labour Party conference may be a rapidly receding memory, brushed aside in the news cycle by UKIP’s conference and Parliament’s vote to authorise military action in Iraq (again) – but it will take months for the stench of misplaced smugness, moral superiority and directionless, crusading fervour left in Labour’s wake to fully dissipate from the Manchester Central Convention Complex.

The bland, ambitious, vaguely telegenic personalities were the same.

The toe-curlingly bad speeches were the same.

The policy announcements (where they existed) were the same.

The delegates milled around, congratulating themselves for being the only ones in Britain who care about the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. So much the same.

They called themselves “brother” and “sister”, and talked about “solidarity” as though they were still engaged in some kind of real, urgent, principled struggle.

But it was all an act.

Today’s Labour Party, increasingly under the New Labour era of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – and now reaching its dismal nadir under Ed Miliband – is nothing but an orchestrated pretence, an amateur dramatic society production of Labour’s Glory Days, with Ed Miliband playing the part of Clement Attlee and introducing Andy Burnham, in his first dramatic role, as Nye Bevan.

Continue reading →

With Constitutional Reform, Labour Puts Politics Before Country

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

ed miliband devolution

 

The idea that Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish MPs should no longer be able to vote on matters affecting only England when devolution prevents any English reciprocity is the only reasonable, logical viewpoint for a British citizen to hold – particularly in the aftermath of the Scottish independence referendum.

One might expect that a political party so self-avowedly obsessed with promoting “fairness” would recognise this universal truth, and work swiftly to ensure that the new reality comes to pass.

But Ed Miliband’s Labour Party has many priorities, and advancing this most fundamental form of constitutional fairness is very far down the list. Indeed, it is almost universally viewed as a threat.

The status quo keeps alive the possibility of a future Labour government in Westminster, while ensuring that a Conservative UK government is prevented as much as possible from interfering with any left-wing policies that take shape in the devolved assemblies.

Continue reading →

The United Kingdom’s Last Stand

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

Scotland UK Unity Rally Trafalgar Square London semipartisansam

 

In the darkest days of our nation’s history, when Britain confronted the Nazi menace alone and the United Kingdom was all that stood between the free world and fascism, a series of daily concerts were held at the mothballed National Gallery in London’s Trafalgar Square. These concerts, organised by the pianist Myra Hess, served to lift the spirits of war-weary Brits and demonstrate a positive public response in the face of the most trying circumstances.

Trafalgar Square has played host to many rallies, concerts and protests since those bleak days in the 1940s. But there have been none so important as the rally which is scheduled to take place later today, on Monday 15 September in support of the United Kingdom, and in opposition to a “Yes” vote in the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence.

The circumstances of the new existential threat we face may be quite different, but make no mistake: the survival of our country in its current form has not been at such great a risk since Hitler’s Luftwaffe threatened to clear the way for a German invasion.

A democratic, peacetime split may is clearly not the same as invasion by a foreign power, but it would be traumatic in its own way. No, there will not be an occupying army or columns of tanks on the street if the Scottish people decide to secede from the United Kingdom when they go to the polls on the 18th of September. As following a bereavement or divorce, life at its most banal will continue largely as usual. But something precious will have been lost, something irretrievable. The greatest, most successful country in modern history will have ceased to exist, fractured into a small, euro-centric social democracy to the north and a bewildered, diminished rump to the south.

Continue reading →

A Semi-Partisan Pledge Drive

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Semi Partisan Sam Donations

 

It is now more than two and a half years since I started this blog, primarily to spare weary Facebook friends from being continually subjected to my forceful and not always fully-cooked opinions on every new political story coming out of London and Washington, D.C.

Back in March 2012, the Republican primary campaign was still underway in America and this blog was cheering for Ron Paul as loudly as it was denouncing the seductive paternalism of Rick Santorum, for all the difference it made to either of their fortunes. Closer to home in London, this blog was weighing in with exasperation on Britain’s achingly slow planning process and the question of where to increase London’s airport capacity in order to remain a competitive global city – an argument that still rumbles on, perpetually unresolved. And of course there were calls for lower, flatter taxes on both sides of the Atlantic.

Hopefully regular readers will have noticed a marked improvement in the quality of the output since those early posts, and especially since the spring of 2014 when I was fortunate enough to complete my journalism training with The Big Issue and Poached Creative.

New posts are less frequent, but longer-form and (hopefully) more thoughtful. Gone are the picture posts and “Best Thing Of The Day” type updates, which were never very good and which other sites do far better – though the classical music posts may soon make a comeback. And best of all, there is now some exciting and unique primary journalism in the mix as well as the traditional reaction and commentary on developing political news stories.

One story in particular – my coverage of the People’s Assembly March Against Austerity back in June – received widespread attention and acclaim from senior journalists and establishment figures across the political spectrum. Not everyone agreed with the conclusions I drew from covering the overlooked London anti-austerity demonstration, but there was a general consensus that my coverage raised some important questions.

With this improvement in the blog’s output have come new opportunities to make the case for maximal personal freedom and limited, effective government to a wider audience. I am now a regular contributor to London Live TV’s Headline London lunchtime news programme, where they seem to like my no-nonsense, generally libertarian outlook on local and national politics. Further opportunities to provide semi-partisan analysis on television and various political websites are also in development.

But with new opportunities come new challenges. Making a career change into journalism and updating this blog on anything like a regular basis – in between doing a day job – is long, difficult work. Carrying out the kind of primary journalism which can drive or contribute to the news cycle is even more demanding in terms of time and money.

I have concluded at present that the time spent writing and honing pitches to the likes of The Guardian newspaper for freelance work is not worth the investment and frequent 2AM bedtimes – it significantly detracts from blogging time with no guarantee that the story will be picked up (I am currently 0-5 for such article pitches, at a cost of countless wasted hours of effort).

Therefore, I have taken the decision to turn directly to my readers to help fund this blog’s next initiatives.

Semi-Partisan Sam has received press credentials to cover the upcoming UKIP party conference in Doncaster later this month. With all of the current upheavals in British politics – the Scottish independence referendum, UKIP’s performance in the local and European elections and the upcoming Clacton by-election – this promises to be a political convention like no other in recent times.

This blog has covered the rise of UKIP extensively, well before more mainstream outlets began taking a real interest and registering their panic at the thought of UKIP MPs sitting in Parliament following the 2015 general election. But unlike much of the mainstream media, this blog has sought to understand the legitimate motivations of UKIP supporters rather than dismissing them as bitter, prejudiced and economically left-behind simpletons. And though this blog does not share the anti-immigration hysteria of some UKIP activists and supporters, it does find common cause with UKIP’s message of returning power back to a democratically accountable level in Westminster, and acting decisively in the UK’s national interest.

I hope that my coverage of the UKIP conference will not only be illuminating, but will provide an antidote to the inevitable distortions, mischaracterisation and hysteria that most newspapers have demonstrated to be the extent of their interest in covering the rise of Britain’s new third party.

But to achieve these ambitions and more, additional resources are required.

Regular readers who enjoy reading Semi-Partisan Sam, and who believe that journalism should offer more than a binary choice between the partisan filters of the cozy Westminster elite on one hand and dumbed-down Buzzfeed-style listicles on the other, are invited to make a donation (of whatever amount you choose) to help fund my ongoing work, including – but not limited to – coverage of the upcoming UKIP party conference.

Your donation will help to defray some of the considerable costs of travel, accommodation, internet and subscription services whilst on-site, and a necessary investment in new audiovisual technology (a DSLR camera and microphone of the type on which I trained with the Big Issue) so that all those interviews and pictures come to life in glorious HD rather than the shaky iPhone footage which has had to suffice thus far.

Additionally, at a time when newspapers are closing down and journalism of all forms is under huge pressure to participate in a race to the bottom in search of clicks and web traffic above quality reporting and analysis, your donation will make a small but important stand for quality, truly independent new journalism.

You can make a donation conveniently and safely via PayPal, here:

But more than anything else, if you ever read something here that makes you stop and think, shake your fist in furious disagreement or helps you to see an issue in a new light, please take a moment to pass it on by sharing it with your networks on social media, and contributing your own thoughts via the Comments function. The sharing buttons can be found at the bottom of each article, while the “Leave a Comment” button appears on the left side of the screen below the tags.

In just 30 months, Semi-Partisan Sam has gone from being an overflow space for political rants too long for Facebook and of wildly uneven quality, to a budding journalistic enterprise with (hopefully) real potential for the future. Thank you all for reading, clicking, sharing and commenting.

And a special thanks to those of you who are able to financially contribute to the next chapter of this blog’s growth.