Free Republic

Back in 2015, a new M.P. from Streatham was among those running to replace Ed Miliband as leader of the Labour Party in Great Britain. This was Chuka Umunna, who suddenly pulled out, explaining that he didn’t want to put his wife through the ordeal of the campaign and his possible win. He worried, he said, about her loss of privacy. He was also 36 at the time, and may have felt unready; he knew he had plenty of time to prepare for a run. As it happens, the Labour Party then elected, by a landslide, the far-left ideologue Jeremy...

UK Special Envoy to Yemen Alan Duncan Claims US Controlled by Jewish BankersPosted By Daniel Greenfield On October 15, 2014 @ 12:24 pm In The Point | 18 Comments Alan Duncan, the UK’s Special Envoy to Yemen and Oman, a former oil industry man and current MP, offered a calculated insult to the United States and a staple of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda as part of his unfortunate campaign against the Jewish State.After denouncing Israeli “Apartheid” despite having built his career working with an oil company that actually propped up Apartheid in South Africa, Duncan demanded that all candidates be...

Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of "cancelling Christmas" by refusing to issue a Christmas message. The Labour leader has decided to break with recent tradition and not issue a message tomorrow on Christmas Eve. Instead he will make his thoughts known ahead of New Year's Day. Mr Corbyn's predecessor Ed Miliband issued messages to the nation on Christmas Eve both in 2014 and 2013. Mr Corbyn's decision to not to send a Christmas message to Britain's Christians is in stark contrast to when he sent a message to British Muslims to mark the Muslim festival of Eid in September and...

One of the candidates to lead Britain's Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, has come under scrutiny for comments he once made calling Islamist terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah his "friends." As the Labour leadership race heats up, Corbyn has seen his controversial comments - and his decision to invite members of the terrorist groups to parliament in the first place - come back to haunt him, with the topic being brought up in successive interviews Monday. But it seems the grilling was a little too much for Corbyn, who finally snapped during this interview with Channel 4: Video He is one...

http://media.salon.com/2015/05/hillary_warren_de_blasio.jpgEarlier this week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, along with a gaggle of bored reporters and some boldfaced names in the progressive movement, unveiled a “Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality.” Much like the media event that accompanied its unveiling, the agenda is supposed to be understood as a kind of 21st-century, liberal version of the storied “Contract with America,” the PR stunt that, as legend (erroneously) has it, rocketed Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party to power after the 1994 midterm elections. As my colleague Joan Walsh reported on Thursday, this backward-looking attempt to lay out a...

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- "Shocked," "surprised," "stunned" were some of the words used by broadcasters, columnists, political "experts" and pollsters when a Conservative Party victory was forecast by exit polls on election night. Former Liberal Democrat Party leader Paddy Ashdown was so certain the exit polls were wrong that he announced on the BBC he would publicly eat his hat if they were right. British chefs may now be considering whether a traditional bowler or a Carnaby Snap Brim from Christys’ would make the most palatable meal. When the actual results were in -- a Conservative sweep, with the exception...

Forget Vince Cable. Forget, if you can, Ed Balls (and I know that’s hard, because what a joyous result that was). Expel from your mind the image of Nick Clegg crying into his cornflakes this morning while texting his old pals in the Euro-oligarchy to see if they will give him a new plush job that involves no contact with pesky plebs. For last night there was an even bigger loser than those guys. Russell Brand. Or ‘Rusty Rockets’, as his politics-packed Twitterfeed has it. Rusty being the operative word, for now we know that the much-hyped ability of slebs...

Bookmakers place former health secretary ahead of Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna and others to take over in wake of Miliband resignationAndy Burnham has emerged as the favourite to replace Ed Miliband, after the Labour leader stood down in the hours after the party’s disastrous general election result. Bookmakers placed the former health secretary ahead of Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna and others to take over from Miliband. According to one bookmaker, David Miliband was also in the running. But others agreed that Dan Jarvis and Tristram Hunt had a better chance. The contenders Andy Burnham Live Election live: Osborne and May...

President Obama's campaign mastermind suffered a humiliating end to his political career today as the British Labour party he was paid almost $500,000 to help to victory plunged to a catastrophic defeat. David Axelrod had been touted as the man to get Labour's Ed Miliband into - and the Conservative prime minister David Cameron out of - Downing Street. Instead he slunk out of Britain early, as his former Obama campaign colleague Jim Messina, who advised the winning Conservatives, crowed over a victory which had 'stunned the world'. Axelrod had already vowed that he was 'done with campaigns' after complaining...

Ed Miliband today announced he was quitting as Labour leader after calling David Cameron to congratulate him on his extraordinary election victory. He insisted he took full responsibility for the dreadful night of results, which saw big names including Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy swept out by the Tories and the SNP. He thanked his supporters for their backing, selfies and the 'most unlikely cult ever' Milifandom, as he confirmed Harriet Harman will take over as acting leader. 'I am truly sorry I did not succeed. I did my best for five years,' he said. 'We've come back...

He has put a campaign against excessive rent rises at the centre of his election campaign. And as this newly unearthed footage shows, Ed Miliband has form when it comes to protests against private landlords... Labour leader Ed Miliband -- who called himself 'Ted' at university -- led a 'rent strike' when he was a student 24 years ago, archive footage revealed today The clip, from the Spring of 1991, went undiscovered in the archives of ITV Meridian because of Mr Miliband's name change. He is interviewed in his grey jumper and sports a pudding bowl haircut, but the nasal...

Its getting pretty rough and intense on the eve of a hotly contested general election. The tactics of the big parties are squarely aimed at the smaller parties. In recent hours, Prime Minister David Cameron has made comments saying Wales and Scotland should have tax raising powers. A pitch to the nationalist parties there can be no doubt. The rise of the Scottish National Party has shocked many considering their loss in the independence referendum last year. It looks like the SNP will win 50 to 60 of Scotland's 71 seats in the House of Commons tomorrow. There have been...

LONDON -- They called it "Question Time," borrowing the term from the prime minister's weekly appearance in the House of Commons, but this was surprisingly and refreshingly different. On Thursday, the three main candidates for prime minister -- David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg -- one by one appeared before an audience of voters at the Leeds Town Hall where for a half-hour voters asked them informed, pointed and detailed questions. The host, the BBC's David Dimbleby, called for questions and occasionally followed up, but mostly voters drove the program. Two of the candidates were called liars right to...

Britain's opposition Labour Party has taken a 1 percentage point lead over Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives, according to a YouGov opinion poll published on Friday, though still within the poll's margin of error.

Campaigning in Renfrewshire, he said the nationalists want an SNP vote in the general election in order to "force" a second poll. Launching the SNP's "women's pledge", Nicola Sturgeon said this election was "not about independence". Meanwhile the Lib Dems set out plans for green laws and the Scottish Conservatives focused on jobs. As the penultimate weekend of campaigning got under way, SNP leader Ms Sturgeon joined female activists and actor and campaigner Elaine C Smith in Glasgow to launch the party's women's pledge, which commits the SNP and its members to delivering policies that promote equality... As part of...

A future Labour Government is committed to outlaw the scourge of Islamophobia by changing the law and making it an aggravated crime, according to the Party’s Leader Ed Miliband. “We are going to make it an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people’s records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime,” Miliband told the Editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi in a wide ranging exclusive interview. “We are going to change the law on this so we make it absolutely clear of our abhorrence of...

Ed Miliband’s most senior adviser pays no tax on his reported £300,000 earnings in Britain, The Telegraph has learned. David Axelrod, a former adviser to Barack Obama, admitted that he is not resident for tax purposes in the UK. Labour confirmed it pays Mr. Axelrod in dollars through his consultancy and that he “lives in the US, works in the US and pays taxes in the US”. While it is unclear how much tax Mr. Axelrod will pay in the US, the rates of tax for companies are often significantly lower than for individuals. The admission comes after Ed Miliband...

People who call gay sex ‘disgusting’ will be allowed to stay in the UK Independence Party. Nigel Farage defended party members with ‘old-fashioned’ views about homosexuality, as he warned that with the government passing same-sex weddings ‘nobody knows where it will end up’. MPs last night backed the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, but Mr. Farage said ministers were ‘picking a war with middle England’. …

Ukip is to drop its opposition to gay marriage, party leader Nigel Farage revealed today. The move risks angering disaffected Tories who switched to Ukip after same sex weddings were legalised by the coalition, but Mr Farage insisted: ‘We have absolutely no problem with anybody.’ He said that as part of a review of Ukip’s manifesto, which he has dismissed as ‘drivel’, he would not campaign for gay weddings to be banned. Ukip previously said civil partnerships were a ‘common sense’ way for gay and lesbian couples to register their commitment ‘in a formal way’. But it warned: Gay marriage...

Ed Miliband was branded the SNP's poodle yesterday – as Alex Salmond boasted he would install the Labour leader in No10. In a second pink champagne-fuelled interview in consecutive days, the former SNP leader pledged to 'lock David Cameron out of Downing Street' if the election produces a hung parliament. Mr Salmond said the SNP would back Labour regardless of any formal deal, but said his party would make 'progressive amendments' to the Budget and other legislation – code for higher taxes and Left-wing policies. The Prime Minister seized on the comments in the Commons, describing Mr Miliband as 'Alex...