Martin Bright

Sunday

27 Nov 2016
Martin Bright

Jeremy Corbyn’s celebration of Castro proves that he’s not a serious leader

Just when you thought the story of the Labour Party in the 21st century couldn’t get any more tragic, Jeremy Corbyn decided to issue a statement celebrating the life of a totalitarian leader who tortured and murdered his opponents. I wonder how many people will be ripping up their membership cards after Corbyn's comments on Fidel Castro. Perhaps not many, because Castro’s Cuba acted for so long as a lodestar for those who still see the United States as the greater evil in the region: a predatory colonial force holding the poor of Central and South America as hostages to neo-liberalism. A country without adverts, but with a functioning health service, 99 per cent literacy, the Buena Vista Social Club and Carlos Acosta: now that, they say, is surely something to admire.

Jeremy Corbyn’s celebration of Castro proves that he’s not a serious leader

Thursday

28 May 2015
Martin Bright

Tony Blair has long been an irrelevance in the Middle East peace process

Following months of speculation, Tony Blair has finally announced he is standing down as the Quartet Representative to the Middle East after eight years in the post. It is tempting to ask whether anyone will notice. His time in the job has been marked by a stagnation of the Peace Process, a hardening of the position of increasingly belligerent Israeli governments and a growing distrust among the Palestinians. Tony Blair himself had long become an irrelevance in negotiations. The truth is that Blair was hamstrung from the moment he took the job (immediately after he stood down as Prime Minister in 2007). He was never a 'Peace Envoy', although there was hope in some circles that he would bring the lessons of Northern Ireland to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Tony Blair has long been an irrelevance in the Middle East peace process

Tuesday

3 Mar 2015
Martin Bright

Cage offered ‘Radical Chic’ to modern liberals

In the 1970s it was called 'Radical Chic': the toe-curling tendency of well-heeled liberals to consort with revolutionaries in the hope that the glamour of violence would rub off. The phrase was coined by the journalist Tom Wolfe in a satirical article he wrote for New York magazine about a fundraising party hosted for the Black Panthers by composer Leonard Bernstein. Cage, the Islamic-focussed advocacy organisation, is the new equivalent of the Black Panthers and, for years celebrities, journalist, politicians and human rights organisations have been happy to assuage their liberal guilt and bask in the reflected glory of the Guys from Guantanamo. Vanessa Redgrave, Victoria Brittain, Peter Oborne and Sadiq Khan have all at some time done their piece of endorsing Cage: often making legitimate points about the mistreatment of terrorist suspects just as Bernstein raised the pressing issue of police harassment of black people in the 1970s.

Cage offered ‘Radical Chic’ to modern liberals

Tuesday

21 May 2013
Martin Bright

Cameron has reached the tipping point

The combination of complacency and incompetence that seems to have afflicted the Conservative Party is a wonder to behold. Janet Daley wrote at the weekend of her frustration at David Cameron saying he is 'relaxed' about the situation. She is right that welfare, education and the criminal justice system are in need of reform, although I am not convinced this government is going about it in the right way or with the right personnel. The competence factor is becoming a huge issue for this government, across individual departments, in the management of the parliamentary party and the wider membership (swivel-eyed or staring straight into the headlights). The Labour Party managers who had to help dig Cameron out of a hole of his own making were handed a very practical insight into the chaos at the heart of the Coalition this week.

Cameron has reached the tipping point

Thursday

25 Apr 2013
Martin Bright

Maria Miller and Britain’s creative industries need to talk

Everyone seems to like talking about the ‘creative industries’ these days. For arts folk, it gives the impression that what they do is hard-edged and economically viable, it makes geeky people like programmers and software designers sound more interesting and it allows ministers to talk about rather slippery and intangible elements of the economy in the same way that they talk about manufacturing and financial services. Ever since Labour culture secretary Chris Smith invented the ‘creative industries’ in 1998, this ingenious term has served both political and creative types well. Such has been the success of the UK’s creative industries that some more enlightened government circles began to understand that other sectors could learn from them.

Maria Miller and Britain’s creative industries need to talk

Saturday

30 Mar 2013
Martin Bright

David Miliband has proved he was the wrong man for Labour and Britain

David Miliband's decision to give up on British politics and take up the post of chief executive of the International Rescue Committee is an intriguing one. The former Foreign Secretary and once future Prime Minister said he was hoping to put a definitive end to the soap opera surrounding his rivalry with his more successful and ruthless younger brother. As his friend Philip Collins wrote in his Times column this week (£), the older Miliband has made a series of poor decisions. He chose not to stand against Gordon Brown in 2007, and he chose not to resign when James Purnell stood down from Gordon Brown's Cabinet in June 2009. These two decisions suggested he did not have the killer instinct necessary for leadership, and so it proved to be when he failed to win the Labour leadership against his hungrier brother.

David Miliband has proved he was the wrong man for Labour and Britain

Thursday

14 Mar 2013
Martin Bright

The Creative Employment Programme: a genuine ‘what works’ policy

Around the country, a roadshow is taking place that could transform the way young people are employed in this country. Bear with me, we are about to enter the strange world of mystifying acronyms and quango jargon, but it just might be worth it. The Creative Employment Programme (or CEP to the initiated) aims to create up to 6,500 employment opportunities across the country. The road show has so far visited Birmingham, Sheffield, Gateshead, Cambridge and Southampton to encourage employers to sign up.  Using money from the National Lottery, Arts Council England has set up a £15 million fund to create thousands of apprenticeships, traineeships and internships in the arts and culture. The scheme will be run by Creative and Cultural Skills, a so-called 'Sector Skills Council', a body designed to promote training and employment in the arts sector.

The Creative Employment Programme: a genuine ‘what works’ policy

Monday

11 Mar 2013
Martin Bright

Apprenticeships should be the ‘new norm’ in parliament. Get your MP to hire one

As sound bites go, it’s not one of his best, but David Cameron is right to suggest that apprenticeships should be the ‘new norm’ for young people who want to go to university. But we should use National Apprenticeship Week to recognise that we have a long way to go before the apprenticeship system as a whole is up to the task. As the Richard Review of Apprenticeships found, there is a lot of work to be done. The entrepreneur and former “dragon” was polite when he pointed out that apprenticeships should be targeted at people new to a role and in need of training and that recognised industry standards should form the basis of every apprenticeship. The implication is that the opposite is the case: that apprenticeships are often used to provide training for older people already in employment and that standards vary wildly.

Apprenticeships should be the ‘new norm’ in parliament. Get your MP to hire one

Friday

8 Mar 2013
Martin Bright

A lesson in solidarity, from the Jewish community in Britain

This week I wrote my last Bright on Politics column for the Jewish Chronicle. Here it is in full: This is my last Bright on Politics column. After three-and-a-half years at the JC, I will leave with a lump in my throat, so please forgive me if this piece is a little sentimental or, dare I say it, schmaltzy. When I started work at the paper, some of my former colleagues warned me I was consigning myself to a backwater. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even before I joined the paper I had always felt it to be a unique publication: an ultra-local community newspaper with global ambitions. From my very first days in the job, I found myself slammed into the middle of an international news story with serious implications for UK politics.

A lesson in solidarity, from the Jewish community in Britain

Tuesday

5 Mar 2013
Martin Bright

The Iraq fury still burns, fuelled by unanswered questions

I was fascinated to read the reaction to Nick Cohen’s article expressing his view that after 10 years he still believed the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do. The heart of Nick’s argument is this: ‘I regret much: the disbanding of the Iraqi army; a de-Ba'athification programme that became a sectarian purge of Iraq's Sunnis; the torture of Abu Ghraib; and a failure to impose security that allowed murderous sectarian gangs to kill tens of thousands.For all that, I say, I would not restore the Ba'ath if I had the power to rewind history. To do so would be to betray people who wanted something better after 35 years of tyranny.’ I posted the piece on my Facebook wall as something all opponents of the war should read, even if they disagreed with Nick’s viewpoint.

The Iraq fury still burns, fuelled by unanswered questions

Tuesday

12 Feb 2013
Martin Bright

Trevor Grills: the terrible death of a Fisherman’s Friend

I first came to discover the beauty of the Cornish shanty singers Fisherman's Friends when I was on holiday in the West Country last year. I was late to the game and had bought a copy of their CD at Port Isaac on a whim. I assumed it was a novelty record that I would play once or twice on the car stereo on the way home. But as soon I heard the first phrase of the first tune, 'Shanty Man', I was hooked, reeled in, netted by the passion of this singing. The whole family was. And we know that CD by heart. Of all the songs, some humorous, some celebratory, some plain miserable, one stood out. 'The Last Leviathan', a lament to the death of a great whale, is quite simply one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard.

Trevor Grills: the terrible death of a Fisherman’s Friend

Tuesday

22 Jan 2013
Martin Bright

There is nothing new about Islamism in Africa

The Algerian hostage crisis is over and the Prime Minister has warned that the focus of the al-Qaeda’s franchise has shifted westwards. In his statement on the situation, he was channelling Tony Blair, which at least makes a change from channelling the Foreign Office. But the initial reaction from Downing Street was deeply unimpressive. The BBC’s Nick Robinson quoted a nameless, sneering voice, apparently exasperated at the Algerian response to the crisis. It would be interesting to know whether this patronising individual had ever spent any time working outside SW1 or had any idea that the Algerian people have lived on the frontline of the struggle with violent Islamists for more than 20 years. Still more disheartening was to hear William Hague speaking on the BBC Today programme in classic colonial 'spheres of influence' terms about North Africa being a largely French concern.

There is nothing new about Islamism in Africa

Tuesday

15 Jan 2013
Martin Bright

In defence of Suzanne Moore

Tell me if you have heard this already but it appears that Suzanne Moore has offended the trans-gender lobby. She did this by writing an essay about women’s anger for a Waterstone’s collection of essays, which was then republished by the New Statesman. The following sentence caused deep offence (is there any other kind?): 'We are angry with ourselves for not being happier, not being loved properly and not having the ideal body shape – that of a Brazilian transsexual.' Faced by the not-inconsiderable wrath of the trans-gender community, Suzanne responded in characteristic fashion with a counterblast in the Guardian: 'In Iceland, they put bankers in prison for fraud. Here, we give them knighthoods. So to be told that I hate transgender people feels a little .

In defence of Suzanne Moore

Tuesday

8 Jan 2013
Martin Bright

The Big Society and the problem of faith-based policy making

The real problem with the Big Society (and I speak as someone who has written in favour of the idea) is that it was a vaguely-defined description that was turned into a vaguely-defined aspiration. As with so much of the Conservative Party’s agenda it turned out the project was infused with a nostalgic right-wing utopianism. Yesterday’s letter to The Times from Sir Stephen Budd, the CEO of the Association of Chief Executives of Charitable Organisations (Acevo) was an important intervention from the third sector, which feels justifiably angry that it was marched up to the top of the hill by Iain Duncan Smith and then marched all the way back down again. To be fair to the Grand Old Duke of Chingford, it always seemed that the Big Society was something of a bolt-on to his welfare reforms.

The Big Society and the problem of faith-based policy making

Friday

21 Dec 2012
Martin Bright

The Dalkey Archive Press responds

Following my last post about the Dalkey Archive Press advert for unpaid interns I received an email from publisher John O'Brien. I think it sheds some interesting light on the issue so here it is in full: 'What started out as an announcement of two hires and then hoped-for interns who would become hires (putting aside my "characteristics" sections, if you can), all internships are on hold and will quite likely not resume. We are deluged with requests (paid or unpaid) for internships, and usually take on more than we can properly handle because people are rather desperate to get the experience, without which they cannot get the first door opened for them for a job. I've always been very conscientious about what the kind of duties that interns have, and sometimes that's like walking a tightrope.

The Dalkey Archive Press responds

Monday

17 Dec 2012
Martin Bright

Will 2013 bring an end to unpaid internships?

It’s a bit early for predictions for 2013. But my feeling is that it could be the year of the unpaid intern, or rather, the year of the paid intern if the campaign to pay people a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work continues to gather pace. Hazel Blears did well to secure cross-party support for a 10-minute-rule bill to outlaw the advertising of unpaid internships. It does seem odd that employers are obliged to pay the national minimum wage but can advertise that they are breaking the law. Campaigners Intern Aware has been pushing this particular cause for some time and should be congratulated for its work on the bill. The fact that HMRC is doing so little to enforce such breaches suggests it is perhaps not up to the job.

Will 2013 bring an end to unpaid internships?

Wednesday

28 Nov 2012
Martin Bright

How to improve the Work Programme

Everyone who has been involved in the Work Programme has been warning ministers for some time that there were serious problems with this flagship policy. As this is the opposite of a listening government nobody took any notice. Big homelessness charities have warned that the system doesn’t work for people on the streets, small work creation charities like the one I run have seen a trickle of referrals from the ‘prime providers’ who won the contracts. Large employers are mystified by the plethora of organisations knocking on their doors offering to partner up on getting people back to work. And now the first official statistics show that just three per cent of people going through the Work Programme are finding sustainable employment – i.

How to improve the Work Programme

Wednesday

21 Nov 2012
Martin Bright

Hopeless in Gaza

I have already tweeted my feeling of utter despondency at the situation in Gaza. I feel hopeless, both in the sense of having no hope and in the sense of being useless to help. Compared to the misery of what is happening on the ground my soul-searching is a mere pimple of suffering and I realise that I have no right to lose hope, when hope is what Israelis and Palestinians who want peace must cling to. But what has struck me in this conflict, more even than during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, is how quickly those who care to comment about such matters have retreated into pre-rehearsed positions. Two articles in the Guardian, one by Hamas leader Musa Abumarzuq and the other by Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon, were mirror images of each other: both men arguing that the actions of their adversary left them no choice but the path of violence.

Hopeless in Gaza

Monday

12 Nov 2012
Martin Bright

The paedophile equivalent of 7/7

I was looking through an old contacts book the other day (something that sad ageing hacks find themselves doing) and found that a number of people I used to call are now in prison. There was old Abu Qatada’s mobile number: I’d interviewed him in 1999 for The Observer when he was first named as a terror suspect. He outlined then what became the standard line for Islamist apologists: ‘Why do we hate America, why are we enemies of America? This is a question that should be addressed to America. Islam is the enemy, you say it, the West says it. And by America's action it made us the enemy.’ Man of God or Man of Violence, we wondered and it seems the British justice system is having difficulty deciding too. In the same book is a number for Abu Hamza, who has just lost his fight against deportation to the United States, the classic Bond-villain and a gift to any journalist.

The paedophile equivalent of 7/7

Tuesday

23 Oct 2012
Martin Bright

The government needs good news from the Work Programme

You know a government is in trouble when the 'week from hell' moves beyond cliché to become the normal state of affairs. We already had a slew of pieces around the time of party conference asking if things could get any worse (I believe I even wrote one myself). And then they did. The Mail and the Sunday Times have now joined in with what has become a national sport of Tory-baiting. The charge of incompetence is everywhere and everyone is blaming everybody else. The Mitchell affair hit at the very heart of party discipline, with the man appointed to impose it losing every scrap of authority he had before finally falling on his sword. Now the Sun (seconded by Guido) has demanded the heads of 'No. 10 chiefs' Craig Oliver and Andrew Cooper.

The government needs good news from the Work Programme

Saturday

13 Oct 2012
Martin Bright

Taking stock of politics after the conferences

Party conference season is over and it all felt very mid-term. It’s always best not to be swept away by the immediate reaction to leaders’ speeches. Miliband’s was surprisingly good, Cameron’s was not bad at all and Clegg’s was OK too. Where does that leave us? Just under three years until the next election with everything to play for. At the Jewish Chronicle we planned the usual round of political interviews. Simon Hughes was admirably frank. He has not always had the best relationship with the Jewish community, especially since his involvement with the all-party parliamentary group on Islamophobia. He said he was worried the case for a two-state solution was being lost and that realists might have to countenance a one-state option.

Taking stock of politics after the conferences

Sunday

7 Oct 2012
Martin Bright

What else could go wrong for the Tories?

Beyond being implicated in the Jimmy Savile scandal it’s hard to imagine how last week could have been worse for the Tories. The build up to their conference in Birmingham has been marked by about as catastrophic an example of incompetence as it is possible to imagine at the Department for Transport. The cancellation of the West Coast rail franchise competition is plain embarrassing and has led to the usual response of this government: blame someone else. Three civil servants have been suspended while Justine Greening, who was Secretary of State at the time of the fiasco, remains in the Cabinet. You had to feel for her successor, Patrick McLoughlin, who was left to apologise on the Today programme for failings in the department he inherited.

What else could go wrong for the Tories?

Monday

1 Oct 2012
Martin Bright

Ed Miliband: my two penn’orth

It seems that everyone is offering Ed Miliband advice. Jonathan Freedland wrote him an alternative leader’s speech. Matthew D’Ancona urged Miliband to answer his own fundamental question: “What is the point of a Left-of-centre Labour leader with an empty wallet?” And Owen Jones urges the Labour leader to find a vision. It would be understandable if Ed Miliband was beginning to get more than a tad exasperated with all this advice. His party is united, he is ahead in the polls and his opponents are in disarray. He has already survived longer than many sage heads believed he could and is now the man most likely to be the next prime minister. The electorate may not be convinced by him as a charismatic personality but he should console himself with the fact that it is not necessary to be charismatic to win an election, as Edward Heath and John Major demonstrated.

Ed Miliband: my two penn’orth

Saturday

22 Sep 2012
Martin Bright

The dangers of yearning for a simple life

What is this mania for simplification? Listening to Nigel Farage struggling to explain UKIP tax policy on the Today programme this week made me wonder why, in so many areas of policy, politicians of the right have such a fetish for making things less complicated than they really are. UKIP’s message is the very essence of this tendency and in Farage’s case you have to wonder whether he’s just too dim to entertain a complex idea. It is no surprise that UKIP’s comfortingly simple message is gaining support, but we should be wary of political oversimplification in times of crisis. This tendency is not restricted to UKIP. The government is learning that simplification of systems can sometimes be very problematic indeed.

The dangers of yearning for a simple life

Friday

14 Sep 2012
Martin Bright

Israel is losing the battle in Britain

The simplest way to react to the madder pronouncements of the trade union movement is to dismiss it as so much infantile 'group think'. Solidarity can be very selective and Israeli trade unionists are apparently discounted simply for being Israeli. The latest decision of the TUC to send a delegation to Gaza under the auspices of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign is not the daftest. But the idea that it would give delegates anything approaching balance is absurd. My Bright on Politics column for the Jewish Chronicle this week was addressed to the Jewish community but the Israel/Palestine conflict has a wider resonance: 'Supporters of Israel are losing the battle of ideas in the UK. This has probably been true for some time, if only they would admit it.

Israel is losing the battle in Britain

Tuesday

11 Sep 2012
Martin Bright

Face it: Ed Miliband could be the next prime minister

It’s fun isn’t it, all this speculation about a leadership challenge to David Cameron? It was obvious really in the run-up to party conference season. We all needed a new narrative. Last year we enjoyed giving Ed Miliband a good kicking and his 'anti-business' conference speech played into the hands of his critics. The infantile booing of Tony Blair’s name by delegates made it look like the party was determined to make itself unelectable. But the reality now - and there are plenty on the left as well as the right who still find this a scary prospect - is that Ed Miliband is the man most likely to be the next prime minister. Looking back, the speech looks rather prophetic with its appeal for a shift in the country’s cultural values in favour of 'grafters'.

Face it: Ed Miliband could be the next prime minister

Friday

7 Sep 2012
Martin Bright

David Cameron’s oddballs

I’m coming to the conclusion that the character of the Cameron government is the inversion of the Brown government. During the dying days of New Labour there was a snarling, socially dysfunctional Prime Minister whom most of the electorate found deeply unappealing. But around Gordon Brown was a group of Cabinet ministers who were really pretty impressive and, well, normal. Alistair Darling, Jacqui Smith, James Purnell, Andy Burnham, Ruth Kelly (remember her?), Alan Johnson, Yvette Cooper: these are all people who it was possible to imagine having  a chat or a drink with in the local pub (or perhaps wine bar).  I could go on. The inverse is true with this government. David Cameron is socially adept and genuinely charming.

David Cameron’s oddballs

Tuesday

28 Aug 2012
Martin Bright

Why did Pete Townshend play the finale to the Olympics?

I returned from holiday to discover that the silly season has turned into something much more serious. The daily list of horrors from Syria, the Eurozone crisis and the terrifying state of the UK economy: they had all been there when I left (for Greece by the way, where people are genuinely scared about the future — stockpiling food and preparing for civil conflict in some cases). But the Olympic fiesta atmosphere seems to have been replaced by something darker following George Galloway's moronic comments about the Assange case. There are plenty of men of the Left whose sexual politics don't bear much scrutiny, but Galloway really is the prize poseur of radical chic. The Assange case is a deeply troubling one for the Left.

Why did Pete Townshend play the finale to the Olympics?

Saturday

11 Aug 2012
Martin Bright

Downing Street humbled by Mo Farah

The genius of Mo Farah was only underscored by the plodding stupidity of Downing Street's statements about the "All Must Have Prizes" culture this weekend. If this is the culture which produced Mo Farah then surely we should be celebrating it. But the truth is that it doesn't exist and never has done. How does David Cameron think we managed to get 28 gold medals if not through the promotion of competitive sport in schools? Mo Farah attended an inner city comprehensive his talent was spotted and encouraged. What's wrong with that? Considering the scale of the success of London 2012, it's no surprise that there have been attempts from both ends of the political spectrum to claim this Olympics for their side. It is a rather pointless game to play.

Downing Street humbled by Mo Farah
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