The PM himself surrenders

by Peter May  on

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

by Peter May  on

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 …

by Peter May  on

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

Rock paper scissors

by Charles Adams  on

I never really liked the game rock-paper-scissors, because it seemed, well, ‘kind of random’. But there is another story that is rather interesting. This simple game provides us with an abstract framework to walk through complex questions such as whether the supreme court ruling on the prorogation of the UK parliament was appropriate or not…. Read more

Organising money and society

by Peter May  on

There are three (not strictly related) TED talks that are worth highlighting; one by the well-travelled journalist, Johann Hari, another by the social psychologist, Paul Piff and the third by the billionaire, Nick Hanauer. All, I think, are well worth watching and only about 15 minutes each. All I’d suggest, show that we have a… Read more

A technological solution…

by Peter May  on

News reporter Richard Chambers has tweeted this picture of the steel and concrete security structures at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester: .   Quite reasonably, he suggests that there must have been technological solutions that would have prevented the use of this infrastructure. I hope he or his ilk manages to ask the question… Read more

Trying to counter fascist talk

by Peter May  on

This from Jonathan Lis in ‘Prospect Magazine’ is pretty chilling: And yet Johnson could do none of this [inflammatory language] on his own. He depends entirely on his enablers. The Tory party unmasked itself this week, finally and for all time. Hundreds of its MPs gathered in the Commons. They heard their leader traduce parliament,… Read more

Rohan Grey’s ‘Banking Under Digital Fiat Currency’ Proposal – A Guest post by Richard Taylor

by Soap Box  on

Rohan Grey, president of the US MMT supporting Modern Money Network, recently wrote a rather good article about why Facebook’s putative Libra currency is a bad idea. In it he links to some proposals for future banking regulation. In my view these proposals for “Banking in a Digital Fiat Currency Regime” are really interesting and… Read more

Are there are more Cultural Catholics or Protestants in Northern Ireland?

by Sean Danaher  on

Introduction On my recent blog on the Lord Ashcroft poll I made a statement that there were now almost certainly more Cultural Catholics than Protestants in Northern Ireland. There have been a number of queries, on Twitter, questioning whether this is true. This blog is not a proper statistical study,  a full analysis would use… Read more