Guy Aitchison

Guy Aitchison is a Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at Loughborough University. He is a political theorist with interests in human rights, political resistance and migration. You can follow him @GuyAitchison.

Illiberal responses to the national debt

What goodies does tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech have in store then? One of the things it may contain is a proposal that would require innocent people to pay £200

By Guy Aitchison

/ 17 Nov 2009

OurKingdom moves to a new site

As I'm sure you've noticed by now, OurKingdom has migrated to a new site along with the rest of the openDemocracy clan.

By Guy Aitchison

/ 11 Nov 2009

Kelly alone isn't enough - Power2010's open letter to party leaders

If any more evidence were needed that the Westminster system is itself sick and in dire need of treatment then the behaviour of MPs in the build up to today's release of Sir Christopher Kelly's report on expenses is surely it

By Guy Aitchison

/ 4 Nov 2009

"Terrorism could mean a lot of things"

...protesting peacefully about climate change for example. Yep - more anti-terror idiocy, this time courtesy of the UK border police, who stopped climate campaigner Chris Kitchen from travelling to Copenhagen

By Guy Aitchison

/ 14 Oct 2009

Victory against the lawyers and the toxic waste dumpers

As I'm sure you know by now Trafigura has dropped the gagging order against the Guardian which prevented the paper from reporting a parliamentary question mentioning the company,

By Guy Aitchison

/ 13 Oct 2009

The Third Estate

If you haven't checked out The Third Estate already then I recommend you do. Named after the definitive tract for French bourgeois revolutionaries, by Abbe Sieyes, it'

By Guy Aitchison

/ 13 Oct 2009

Call for a citizens' convention

This letter appeared in Saturday's Guardian: MPs returning to Parliament this week might like to think that the fury they faced earlier in the year due to the

By Guy Aitchison

/ 11 Oct 2009

Reaction to Cameron's speech

Do Cameron's words on civil liberties and democratic reform sound true? Guy Aitchison, in Manchester promoting Power2010, doubts it

By Guy Aitchison

/ 8 Oct 2009

Democracy "Dragon's Den" with the Tories

After a rather dull and uninspiring Guardian fringe event on "fixing politics", at which the most radical constitutional idea was for more elected mayors, I didn't

By Guy Aitchison

/ 7 Oct 2009

Gaaaaaaahhhh!

A primordial scream echoes across Twitter. When it comes to the avalanche of stupid petty-minded authoritarian measures there really does come a point when words fail you. Via @alixmortimer comes

By Guy Aitchison

/ 6 Oct 2009

Brown's "argument" for AV

I blogged Tuesday on how weak Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour conference was and how pathetic his proposals are for constitutional reform. His plan to stick a

By Guy Aitchison

/ 2 Oct 2009

Reaction to Brown's speech

When he became Prime Minister, Gordon Brown promised far-reaching reform of our democracy. But the Governance of Britain programme he launched is all but dead. At the height of the

By Guy Aitchison

/ 29 Sep 2009