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Paul Richards

Paul Richards is an author, broadcaster, and regular columnist for Progressive Britain.
Glastonbury festival in dark blue with mint green sky. Text: "Paul on Politics"
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Paul Richards

The Big Lie: the conspiracies that infect the left

The organisers of the Glastonbury festival join a lengthening list of conspirators, including the CIA, World Bank, Bilderberg Group, MI5, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Parliamentary Labour Party, and Paul Mason, in preventing the British people from hearing the TRUTH. The ‘truth’ is that Jeremy Corbyn was

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Paul Richards

Mr Greg Hands MP: an apology

During the local elections campaign I wrote an article entitled ‘The Tory Myth of 1000 seats’. I wrote that the Conservative chairman’s assertion that the Tories would lose a thousand seats on 4 May was ‘ludicrous’. I further accused Mr Hands of peddling ‘nonsense’ and ‘fake news’. Now that the Conservatives

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Paul Richards

The Tory myth of 1000 seats

Who is winning the election expectations battle? Behind the scenes of the fierce contest for England’s local councils another bare-knuckle fight is being fought. This one is not fought with voter I.D, leaflets, and rosettes, but instead with projections, predictions, and briefings to the press. This is the expectations battle, and

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Paul Richards

Victory within reach, but far from certain for Labour

Like the olfactory pleasure emanating from a coffee grinder or bread-maker, there is a brimming, pleasing sense of confidence coming off the Labour Party. It smells like victory. To eavesdrop the behind-the-scenes conversations of some of the young people working for Labour is to hear a generation measuring up the

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Nadhim Zahawi on the left, looking over his shoulder behind bags of money. Rich Sunak on the right, looking forwards.
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Paul Richards

Sunak fails the smell test

There is no suggestion whatsoever that Nadhim Zahawi, Cabinet minister and Chairman of the Conservative Party, has broken the law. His fiercest detractors are not calling him criminal, and his loudest defenders, a dwindling band, point out that tax avoidance is not tax evasion. So, what’s the fuss? There’s a

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Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, Tony Blair and Keri Starmer in line in front of faded image of 10 Downing Street. Text reads "Paul on Politics"
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Paul Richards

A century which proves Labour only wins on the centre-ground

This November marks the one hundred years since the Labour Party became the official opposition to the Tories for the first time. The 1922 general election delivered 142 Labour MPs, as the Liberals split into two, never to form a government again. I’ve written a longer essay on it here. JR

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Paul Richards

Conference for a Shared Future

On the eve of last year’s conference in Brighton, there was a Queen on the throne, a Johnson in Downing Street, and few had heard of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Now, as we gather in Liverpool, the political landscape that Keir Starmer surveys is changed utterly. As he rehearses his big speech in

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Text: Paul on Politics. Giles Radice in foreground surrounded by his various publications, Keir Starmer behind him, standing in front of Houses of parliament.
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Paul Richards

Remembering Giles Radice: A One-Man Think Tank

Keir Starmer celebrates his sixtieth birthday this weekend. When he’s blown out his candles, maybe he will consider the past couple of years. The opinion polls show a remarkable turnaround in Labour’s standing since the wasteland of 2019, especially on economic competence. Starmer has brought Labour back from the dead.

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Paul Richards

The Labour Party Is A Party For Government, Not Protest

Only the most cynical or the most naïve people parrot the lie that Sam Tarry was ‘sacked for appearing on a picket line.’ If that was even a little bit true then Lisa Nandy would have been out on her ear, along with several other frontbenchers over this summer of discontent.

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Paul Richards

The Far-Left Project: A Journey Into Infighting

It is hard to tell who was more upset by Labour’s breakthrough result in Wakefield: those circling the wagons around the soon-to-be-ex Prime Minister? Or the self-styled Labour ‘left’? Given their vituperation once the news of Simon Lightwood’s victory came in, I would say the latter.  I won’t give them

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