Author: Dave Middleton

I'm Dave Middleton. I am a member of the Labour Party (until they catch up with me) and like to think of myself as left-wing. My Twitter account is @DavMidd Please do feel free to email me about this blog at ThinkingDoing51@gmail.com
Featured Politics

The Cummings Storm

Dave Middleton0
Dominic Cummings is the story of the week. There is little doubt about that, but what have we really learned apart from the fact that Cummings is not the sort of person you should have as a friend. His revelations that Number 10 was a mess and had no plan for how to deal with the pandemic seem to have come as a massive shock to journalists, who whilst enjoying
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Featured Media Politics

Free The Press

Dave Middleton1
So this week was World Press Freedom Day. Were you celebrating? If you were you probably either own or work for a media corporation or, like so many people, you accept what the press tells you uncritically. Perhaps it simply passed you by as you were far too busy concentrating on the various elections taking place this week. In this article I’m going to concentrate mainly on the U.K. press.
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Featured Politics

We don’t need no Representation

Dave Middleton0
Last week I wrote a piece called ‘The case against FPTP’ which was a deliberately misleading title, because many people would have, wrongly, assumed, that I was making the case for proportional representation (PR), which I wasn’t. I expected people to be critical of me for not jumping on the PR bandwagon which has been steadily building up a head of steam in left circles. Most critical responses to the
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Featured Politics Socialism

Why They Dont Like Us Protesting

Dave Middleton0
The Police and Evidence Bill now wending its way through Parliament represents one of the most draconian pieces of legislation introduced by any British government in recent history. Having said that the same was said about the recent Spycops Bill and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. ‘Most draconian’ it seems is relative. Whilst the stand-out clauses are those which virtually make being Roma illegal and which make demonstrating more
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Featured Media Politics

The bumpy road to freedom

Dave Middleton0
There are two stories that have dominated the news this week. The main news has been totally dominated by the announcement by Boris Johnson that all Covid restrictions would be lifted by June 21st - very handily just in time for Wimbledon the quintessential English sporting event which nobody English ever wins. The other news, of rather less interest to the media is that in what appears to be a
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Featured Politics

The spectre haunting the left

Dave Middleton0
In 1844 Marx and Engels wrote “A spectre is haunting Europe...” as the opening line of The Manifesto of the Communist Party. They continued “The spectre is communism”.  If I was to repeat those words today I might say: “A spectre is haunting left politics in Britain. The spectre of the Labour Party.”  It is clear that the Labour Party, like one of the dementors in Harry Potter, suck the oxygen
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