This story in the ‘Mirror’ really does go to show that our elected government does not actually have our best interests and more especially, those of our children – our very future – at heart. They were unable – or unwilling – to accept the offer of cheap broadband for children’s learning during the pandemic… Read more
Category:
Inequality
Not meriting the description of democracy…
I thought this piece on charity – a sector so beloved of our government – by Tom Serpell, from Sussex Bylines was very powerfully written (I thought of my own recent piece on the same subject and thought ‘must do better’): … if filling in the holes in the needs of the people is left… Read more
Health is made at home, hospitals are for repairs
Is the wonderful title of an article, concerning his own book, in the ‘New Local’ by Nigel Crisp former CEO of the NHS, and now a crossbench peer. He says: I argue in the book that we need to think about health differently and recognise that health creation plays an important role alongside health services… Read more
Charities are just another unequal tax
When I discovered that last night’s ‘Children in Need’ television programme had been going for forty years it led me to think about charity. This is really a version of the very Victorian concept of ‘the poor will always be with us’ – because after four decades we still have children in need. So foggy… Read more
Is Nye Bevan right?
So the Australia type deal that Britain will flourish under, according to Johnson, is a trade deal that, in fact, Australia is trying to actually improve in the already existing trade talks with the EU, where both sides have agreed that: The discussions confirmed a shared commitment to rules-based trade as well as to helping… Read more
Is rebellion imminent?
This moving piece from Channel 4 news and from a real small employer (rather than a grasping rentier capitalist) correctly explains why so many are completely adrift in the government’s occasional, random and unscientific lockdowns. For sure the science is uncertain – but the money creation to ensure both the lady in the interview and… Read more
‘What matters’ is that equality works
We are currently told that Black Lives Matter which, like all lives, of course they do. And while we now discover that the American policeman accused of murder had had 17 complaints against him, none of which seemed to have changed anything, and, indeed there are also instances of American policemen killing white arrestees with… Read more
One way of getting homes for the homeless
This quote below is from a Twitterer I do not know but with whom I do wholeheartedly agree – it seems to be an extraordinary act of generosity. I’m not a fan of boxing but I do appear to have become a fan of Tyson Fury. Dr Abdul G S Kasim@AbdulGSKasim has said that instead… Read more
A Fond Farewell to the UK from an EU27 citizen? – part II (Education, Industry and Media)
Introduction In Part I, I discussed origins, but three cultural and historical differences struck me fairly immediately when I came to work in England in 1981. First, many scientists I met seemed to have little knowledge of the humanities. Correspondingly, knowledge of science seemed lacking among non-scientists. I was hardly the first to notice. C.P…. Read more
Gang culture for toffs? understanding the right wing mind – part three
Sanna Marin, the Finnish Prime minister, who I’ve referred to previously, also has another good quote: I have never thought about my age or gender. I think more about the motivations that brought me into politics. Here is somebody concerned not about her interest group (or ‘gang’), but fired up about why she wants to… Read more