{"id":83613,"date":"2025-07-01T18:57:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=83613"},"modified":"2025-07-01T18:57:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:57:30","slug":"labour-and-the-pontius-pilate-school-of-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/01\/labour-and-the-pontius-pilate-school-of-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour and the Pontius Pilate School of Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>With apologies (but not many) for repeating this theme:<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p class=\"p4\">Labour sees the problems we face. It talks about them. Then it washes its hands and leaves us \u2014 or the market \u2014 to solve them, just like Pontius Pilate. This style of politics is such a betrayal.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Is Labour the Pontius Pilate Party?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nOAWmk_XXyo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is the transcript:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>It occurred to me recently that Labour's leadership all seemed to have gone to what I might call the Pontius Pilate School of Politics.<\/p>\n<p>Pontius Pilate was, of course, the Roman judge who was responsible for trying Jesus in Jerusalem,\u00a0 according to the Bible.<\/p>\n<p>The case was brought before him. He heard what was being said. He realised that the issue was politically contentious. He washed his hands, and he left it to others to solve the problem.<\/p>\n<p>And that is exactly what Labour does.<\/p>\n<p>They recognise that there is an issue.<\/p>\n<p>They talk about it.<\/p>\n<p>They wash their hands and pretend it is for the market or us to solve the problem, but it has nothing to do with them.<\/p>\n<p>Pontius Pilate went down in history because of his indecision. So too will Labour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With apologies (but not many) for repeating this theme: Labour sees the problems we face. It talks about them. Then it washes its hands and<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/01\/labour-and-the-pontius-pilate-school-of-politics\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83626,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83613\/revisions\/83626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}