Hopi Sen Articles

This August has been the serious season. Ukraine, Israel-Gaza, Isis, Syria have all reminded us of the perils of an unstable world, while domestic extremism and child abuse have forced us to think about what sort of society we are. These issues have darkened the...

Elections are always about the future. Tony Blair emphasised this point in his Philip Gould Lecture, perhaps because it was a reminder of Gould’s own relentlessly forward-looking politics. Yet an accounting is needed too. Because for the Labour party, Blair is now in...

We don’t like to talk about reshuffle insignificance, because it rather rubs people’s face in it. If Andrea Backbench-Marginal has devoted her entire adult life to the cause, and finally makes it all the way to cabinet, and is glimpsed, modest smile on face, slipping...

I am an absurdly unsuccessful politico. In almost two decades of political involvement, my highest elected office was two years as a council backbencher, a stint condemned to total irrelevance by my voting to depose the Labour council leader in my first meeting. I was...