What is zenpolitics?

‘Taking the trash and the hyperbole out of politics and trying to look at people and issues in a way that’s detached from emotion and as they really are. Can be very hard to find these days.’

That was my idea when I began this blog back in 2009. They were the heady months immediately after Obama’s election. ‘Yes, we can’ – the words were ringing in our ears.

Now it’s a tougher world, with crises wherever we look. Read posts from the early 2010s and, yes, we had our big issues, but by comparison we had it easy then.

It’s also a world where we’ve online commentaries coming at us from every direction. I posted a blog back in October which I thought would be my last. But I’m about to publish a book which takes as its subject the town of Hebden Bridge, as it was in the late 19^th century, and that’s given me a spur to continue.

History will have more of a part to play, alongside and interwoven (as it should be) with politics. And I’ll try and keep a sense of detachment (hence the ‘Zen’ in the title). That was my idea in launching the blog all those years ago. We will see how it goes.