The Tepid Take

     This article is not supposed to be personal, but I am a firm believer in the Midlands. Having visited some parts of the UK at least some times, the evidence for me is near conclusive. Regardless of how carefully a line can be drawn across the ribcage of Great Britain, I will remain adamant that I have lived in the Midlands since my parents moved to Ipswich in 1998. As the butt of many a geographical joke, Ipswich cannot possibly be found in the South, but equally it is far too southerly on a map to be labelled Northern. While Danny Dorling, a professor from Sheffield and the definitive producer of an academic North-South Divide , acknowledges that “it would be possible to identify enclaves and exclaves”, many impoverished towns far south of a single Scouser make it clear that the Midlands exist, and this goes without even mentioning the golden goose that is the Black Country dialect. The Midlands does exist, and it is just as stalwart as the North and the South.      That t

Is the Labour Party doing okay? Is Len Mccluskey still sane? Is anyone actually worried about these things? The short answer: No. The upcoming leadership election in the Labour Party has gained so much interior traction that it’s forgotten that a world exists outside committees and secret ballots. Labour’s presence in the papers over the past months has had nought to do with a serious response to the newly minted May, aside from minor policy punts by the would-be usurper, Owen Smith. Truthfully, the man is unassuming, clever in the least offensive kind of way, and as in-demand as a Tony Blair lookalike post-Iraq. Similes aside, Smith is the man for the job, where the job is ‘head of making it obvious how farcical a state the Labour Party is in’. Bereft of any good option, the party is choosing between a man who stands for oblivion, and a man who stands for oblivion. I’ve based that last sentence on an average of the rhetoric of Smith & Corbyn supporters. But who’s telling the t