Kester Brewin

I’m really excited about the new book coming out in the next few weeks, especially as the over-arching theme of engaging the other is so current. British politics has historically been about governing by majority. One party gets enough seats to be able to vote through whatever legislation it sees fit. Rebellions are uncommon; the [...]

Change is the word you’ll have heard most around this election. It’s actually become a fetish – something that people are obsessed with, without rationally thinking exactly what the kind of change it is that they want – as I blogged about in a series of posts beginning here, and as Bill Bailey has put [...]

Interesting piece on the Today programme this morning, re-visiting the constituency of Smethwick – a safe seat in which was notoriously won by the vile Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths in 1964 following his campaign which ran under the slogan ‘If You Want A Nigger For  A Neighbour, Vote Labour.” Smethwick reacted to chuck out the [...]

For anyone who’s watched any US television show starring anyone under the age of 25, or stepped inside a school, or just has, like kids, they’ll know that as a teacher the word I hear most often is, like, “like.” I’ve tried banning it in my lessons, but to no avail. One child today was [...]

Election Thoughts [1] | Election Thoughts [2] In the previous two posts I’ve tried to set out a critique of the choice agenda that main parties are promoting, and also the ‘rights’ / devolved power agenda that is a central tenet of the Conservative Party manifesto. The key question that was rightly asked yesterday was [...]

In the previous post, I argued that the ‘choice’ agenda that all parties are keen to promote is actually something of a fallacy. Genuine choice of political representation in the kind of democracy we have is pretty much an illusion, and choice in delivery of services like health and education would actually require surplus capacity, [...]