In this week's issue
- Land grabs linked to East African Crude Oil Pipeline result in violent evictions
- How digital tools and AI are reshaping sexual violence against children
- Paul Rogers: Netanyahu’s regional conflicts risk spiralling beyond control
- Adam Ramsay: Election results mark the end of Westminster’s political system
- As the war against Iran puts oil at the centre of global concerns, a new intergovernmental coalition is seeking to accelerate the energy transition outside the COP system
Our publishing schedule means the results of the elections in England, Scotland and Wales are still trickling in as I type, but it is clear that Keir Starmer’s government remains deeply unpopular. The prime minister has insisted that he is not going away, but that hasn’t stopped MPs from his own party calling for his resignation. We’ll have more detailed analyses for you in the coming days, but personally, I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between vision and plans, between leadership and management.
It is hard to escape the feeling that Labour has an abundance of managers with plans and an absence of visionary leadership. Pundits are reading the successes of Reform and the Greens as a sign of the death of the two-party system but, having lived through the political churn of Indian politics, I would only say that party systems and loyalties are far more robust than political observers assume. Maybe Starmer should step down, but whoever comes next had better have a compelling vision for an increasingly sceptical electorate.
For openDemocracy alumnus Adam Ramsay, though, the results – including the pro-independence wins in Scotland and Wales – reveal not just a headache for Starmer, but a constitutional omnicrisis for the UK. He’s written for us this week about why he believes Westminster’s political system is finished.
