Welcome, Uncut readers, to the mind of Tom Harris
What did you think? That he’d go gentle into that good night?
Or find another format to rage?
Having folded away his macbook and given up his celebrated blog last November, Tom Harris is back. But only once a week, only on Uncut, and for strictly thirty seconds.
Tune in on Wednesdays from next week to hear why he’s right, you’re wrong, and it isn’t like you thought it was.
The ballot papers are in the post. The final days to the leadership vote are marked by ‘fratricide’, suspected Tory tricks and the ever narrowing idea that it’s between two brothers. There’s also another race going on, and the fight for Labour’s mayoral candidacy is just as bitter.
At Uncut, Oona King ruined series one of The Wire, Andy Burnham’s desert island discs turned into a matter of geography, the leadership contenders got the top trumps treatment from our illustrator and Chris Kelly…the puns were all too easy to come by.
In case you missed our week at Uncut, here are our picks.
Milena Popova on the government’s misunderstanding and misuse of information
Andy Burnham’s desert island discs
Blair is flipping us the finger, but thats ok, says Dan Hodges.
Stella Creasy talks social mobility
That most exuberantly brilliant of newspaper prose stylists, Frank Johnson, used to write an annual column arguing that it is not true that nothing ever happens in August.
Well it is certainly not true on Uncut. We have had one of the best weeks of our three month life under the guest editorship of blogger extraordinaire and MP par excellence, Tom Watson.
He attracted such a dizzying array of beltway bigshots and blogosphere behemoths that the acute contributions of star political writers such as John Kampfner and Vincent Moss are not even reproduced below.
We can scarcely thank Bro. Watson enough. He ran the Uncut team ragged, for responding so admirably to which they also deserve appreciative recognition.
More, he broadened and enlivened our offering. For which we restate, one last time, our gratitude on behalf of our readers: thanks Tommy.
Below is a bigger than usual selection of the better-read contributions to an outstanding week on Uncut.
Tom Harris tells it predictably straight
John Underwood on a one-off wealth tax
Eric Joyce on a new defence review
Aaron Porter on higher education
Billy Bragg on tactical voting
Paul Bower on his difficult relationship with Labour
Uncut’s guest editor next week will be former Labour minister and sitting MP for West Bromwich East, Tom Watson.
The second British MP to start blogging (in 2003), he has emerged in the three months since the election as the most vigorous backbench scourge of the Tory-Lib Dem government.
Uncut will not be safe in his hands. But the management team has made a judgment that he is unlikely to break it in a week.
To the limited extent that it is possible to do them simultaneously: pay attention, and run for cover.
Labour Uncut is now a month old. We’ve had some fantastic contributions, a great reaction and massively more traffic than we expected.
The whole venture was a spur of the moment thing. It’s more work than it probably looks for the small group of people involved. But we’re enjoying it and we think it’s worth doing.
What do you think? What should we do more or less of? What would you have us do differently?
We’re genuinely interested. We want to produce something people want to read.
Here’s a random selection of some of the better-read posts of our first month:
Painter on the non-existent centre ground
Ray Collins forgets to pay lip service
Cheetham: who you calling a loser?
Joyce: neither Blair-lite nor Clegg-lite, thanks
Nick Palmer on the army of the unaffiliated
Hodges blames the Labour right
The awesome ruthlessness of Ed Miliband
