Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT
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Tory contenders won’t learn from their history, but the left can
KEITH FLETT draws parallels with the 1834 Tory crisis, noting the absence of modern-day Robert Peel among the leadership contenders capable of reinventing the party for a new era
A statue of former British prime minister Sir Robert Peel in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester
Scotland has become one of the world’s most foreign-owned economies, and our political elite celebrates these sell-offs as success — we need to ask how supposedly progressive nationalism has enabled corporate capture, writes DR JAMES FOLEY
When the latest round of hysteria reached our town, we successfully organised and stopped it reaching the asylum centre gates as the far right had planned — but we need to have answers for the local residents who joined their demonstration, writes NICK WRIGHT
A ‘new phase’ for Starmerism is fairly similar to the old phase – only worse. ANDREW MURRAY takes a look
Macron is seeking a centrist replacement for the pro-austerity French PM, while the emergence of the grassroots Bloquons Tout movement means for the left there’s a period of struggle ahead – and all to play for, writes BILL GREENSHIELDS
The Met Police arrested a staggering 890 people, many elderly, disabled, and even blind in a single demonstration — all to back up the government’s unhinged campaign against non-violent civil disobedience at the behest of Israel, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE
AS the author Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote in the Guardian recently, not even the Tories care who wins the contest to be the next Tory leader. With 121 MPs, it’s very unlikely that whoever is elected will get be a Tory prime minister.
The Tory leadership contest has now reached a halfway stage. After two ballots, six candidates have now been whittled down to four.
However, with such a small electorate and with each of the four attracting support, all we have really learnt so far is that the Tories are completely split over where to go for the future.
More from this author
Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT revisits debates about the name and structure of proposed working-class parties in the past
The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT looks at the long history of coercion in British employment laws
