Alastair Stewart and the new theatre of TV politics

 Alastair Stewart, moderator of the first ever UK General Election televised debate  “The TV debates were a tipping point in how we do politics” according to Alastair Stewart, who made history as moderator of Britain’s first ever televised election debate between the three main party leaders. And having experienced in the flesh the

Cameron’s cult of personality: a response to Simon Heffer

Simon Heffer’s recent Telegraph article on David Cameron’s cult of personality suggests that the recent expansion in the Prime Minister’s ‘vanity team’ masks a massive vacuum of policy. Asking his readers whether they’d prefer he stopped holding politicians to account and offer a defence of Wagner (assuming he means the German composer and not the

Tuition fees are the right answer to university funding problems

It wasn’t hard to feel sorry for the 50,000 students and lecturers who marched against cuts on Wednesday, in defence of their right to a fairly funded education. The vast majority of demonstrators protested peacefully, underpinned by a serious and coherent political point. But it is understandable that a sizeable group of the electorate should

Meddling with the psychology of a nation

“I woke up to a mental image of Moira Stewart standing outside the BBC shouting SCABSCABSCAB in Alan Dedicoat’s face” The good people of the BBC don’t strike very often, but when they do, it’s somewhat eerie. Turning on your television set on the morning of Friday 5 November, a day usually set aside for

The US midterms: will Obama be too late for the Tea Party?

On Thursday 4 November, President Barack Obama will find himself exactly halfway through his first, and possibly his only term in office. In today’s election, the results of which will start to trickle through shortly, 435 seats of the House of Representatives, and 37 in the Senate will be up for grabs. Regardless of the