These are the new blue passports (I have spared you the full view of the holder – our smirking home secretary). In full-on irony the new passport seems to sum up Brexit. It is in a new colour reminiscent of an older style, though, in fact, the EU has never prescribed passport colour. The new… Read more
Category:
Politics
Bloody immigrants…
Coming over here and taking our best jobs… That is effectively what Patel and Johnson’s plan seems to be because the low skilled – for which read low paid – will not be able to find work in the UK. So, ironically, the Brits will need to take the low skilled jobs whilst the more… Read more
What is this government’s purpose?
An interesting ‘Observer’ editorial laments the decline of Keynes’ post-war ‘consensus’ for the future of civilised society as it seemed to be at the time. Conservatives mobilised an argument that generous welfare spending did not just undermine capitalism, but had inflationary, destabilising consequences and hence was a threat to democratic governance. Our government is similarly… Read more
Brexit visions
This was tweeted by Nick, who I know only as an Arsenal supporter but his take on Brexit serves a conclusion much wider than that! He suggests that Brexit is: “People celebrating an imaginary freedom, over an imaginary oppressor in an imaginary war. With imaginary benefits.” I really cannot improve on that. Yet is this… Read more
Aeroplane Food
I thought this tweeted picture from the new and ‘rising star’ MP for Coventry South worth highlighting: I don’t suppose many MP’s can be bought off by what seems effectively to be a small hamper. But then I wondered why, if they can’t, is Heathrow airport bothering to send them out?… Read more
The sunlit uplands of England – as defined by Scotland
Another interesting moment from the recent Billy Bragg interview was how, as a good Essex boy, he called England a blank sheet which was currently largely defined by Scotland. England is of course home to more Scots than the populations of Scotland’s first and third cities combined. Dissent, he suggested, is a thread which runs… Read more
Liberty, Equality and Accountability
No, Fraternity, isn’t part of this…. Nonetheless, I suggest this is a very powerful conclusion by Billy Bragg in an interesting podcast with the lawyer Adam Wagner, in which they talk about ‘agency’. I thought it very incisive as they, quite correctly in my view, suggest that neoliberalism gives ‘agency’ to both businessmen and ‘markets’… Read more
Winner takes all is destructive of politics – and democracy
A wonderfully graphic image of how our voting system is, as it were – no, as it is – disproportinate: This winner takes all is also, it occurs to me, very destructive of political engagement. Why would you choose to vote in a contest in which, once over, you are completely ignored? As an example… Read more
Average length of time to hold a share on London Stock Exchange?
EIGHT SECONDS (the source is Radio Four’s today programme this morning). This exposes as a lie the idea that the Stock Exchange is a source of capital and long term finance for what used to be called the Joint Stock Company. The London Stock Exchange is a casino – pure and simple. This is yet… Read more
The mentally disordered are actually our government – not their servants
Having just finished ‘The Secret Barrister’, Stories of the Law and How it is Broken’ there is similarly interesting, and frightening, paper on the Mental Health of the Police entitled, on matching lines to the Secret Barrister, ‘Where’s the humanity?’ I quote some considerable and cogent prose below: So why is mental health within police… Read more