Julian Popov@julianpopov is an ex Bulgarian Environment Minister. His tweet below I thought worthy of a wider audience! The year is 2192. The British Prime Minister visits Brussels to ask for an extension of the Brexit deadline. No one remembers where this tradition originated, but every year it attracts many tourists from all over the… Read more
Category:
Politics
Government without principle
Amid all the surreal fantasy that Brexit has given us, the fact that the government can maintain that the people just want to ‘get it done’ at the same moment that there about a million people outside the Parliamentary gates asking for a second referendum ranks as some of the most brazen lying of the… Read more
Undermining Voting Rights
The appalling Conservative idea of having to possess ‘identity’ in order to vote is straight out of the US Republican scheme of how to reduce votes, effectively from people who do not like you… There is in fact, virtually no election fraud in mainland UK with just one prosecution in the last period. It is… Read more
Fascism and how to avoid it
This Channel Four interview with Professor Timothy Sneider of Yale University is so good I provide no comment, but suggest simply that is well worth its ten minute viewing time…. Read more
Economics as ‘moral science’
There was an fascinating recent edition of Renegade Inc on the Book by Dr Jonathan Aldred of Cambridge University entitled ‘Licence to be Bad’ – how economics corrupted us. He starts by suggesting that people used to admire ‘doing your bit’, which is basically an indication of a contribution to a collective, co-operative task. Nowadays… Read more
A little local optimism….
There is an interesting but little publicised article here, which shows that the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) – which is, effectively, a method whereby Local Authorities can borrow money at ‘beneficial’ rates, has just put up its rate by a whole 1%. Apparently, the Treasury sent a letter to Finance Officers in all local… Read more
Neoliberal lies are certainly present in Brexit too
This was the FT’s front page yesterday (double click to enlarge): I’ll spare comment on Mr Putin’s Siberian holiday… in favour of the second article – an estimate by HMRC that outside the EU it would cost British business 15 billion pounds to fill in time-consuming and inconvenient customs declarations – based on the 215m… Read more
The PM himself surrenders
This is in an encouraging blog from David Allen Green, the ‘intermittent’ FT legal correspondent. The article on yesterday’s Scottish court judgement is well worth reading – even though I’m rather unsure if he – or I – should ever refer to the act as the surrender act… Nevertheless, the conclusion is pretty devastating: British… Read more
Capitalism’s indebted dynamism
Paul Mason has an interesting article in the New Statesman, which starts: In his own dumb way, Matt Hancock just summed up the survival strategy for global capitalism. Blinking into the camera lights, Britain’s hapless Health Secretary assured viewers that he could promise to build 40 new hospitals with just £100m because “the rest of the… Read more
Misusing the Monarch …
This was recent letter to the Times which makes a very good point: The Cummings Johnson constitutional wrecking ball would appear to be being used again – and Her Maj is collateral damage – again. It is deliciously ironic that her least favourite PM will have been a Tory. But it is rather worrying that,… Read more