Conservatism
Could the money message learn from Mick Lynch?
This is a compilation of Mick Lynch’s interviews, which gives the general idea of the technique… Skip if you already know it.. The folksy straight talking style which does not accept many of the parameters of the framing of the question posed would fit the bill for talking about money admirably. Calling the Conservatives liars... Read more
Corroding Democracy..
There is a very interesting article in the Byline Times by the curiously named Alexandra Hall Hall, who resigned from her diplomatic American post over Brexit. She has written a mea culpa (do please read it all) and concludes: The uncomfortable truth is that it is not just this Government which lies, though it has... Read more
Brexit ‘benefits’ beginning to be pointed out…
There is remarkable agreement on the Brexit disadvantages – if not disasters – from both commerce and also the FT, who say: The UK is lagging behind the rest of the G7 in terms of trade recovery after the pandemic; business investment, seen by Johnson and Sunak as the panacea to a poor growth rate,... Read more
RMT’s media lessons
I’m rather impressed with RMT’s media approach. First its leader gets asked on Sky News what he will do when agency workers are recruited (if only they could find any) to take his members’ jobs. And he says picket the premises. Sky news was obviously hinting at violence and so he gets asked how he... Read more
Priti Patel’s immigration policy – back to the future
This is spot on: Even her constituency has been subject to the blue plaque treatment…... Read more
Food: a sudden lack of willpower – or simply a commercial advantage?
An interesting article in the FT (archived by the way – so the link is certainly live – and this is the way I shall link to the FT in future – indeed have been doing for some time…) says: “People then think that being obese is their fault,” Edson [co-founder of NHS-backed weight loss... Read more
Billionaires B*tch
This is a contribution on Double Down News, from ex Mail journalist, Peter Oborne, who used to work for Johnson. The piece does, I fear, emphasise many of the governmental problems already highlighted in these pages, but he is able to point out, as himself an old-fashioned Conservative, how his party has been transformed –... Read more
The tears of the world are a constant quantity…
…..Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. These memorable words are from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and are not, I suggest, true – they are after all, given to Pozzo, who to me is a sort of controlling self-satisfied capitalist who, lest we forget,... Read more
Labour needs to reset the paradigm
Following a conversation with left leaning friends (hopefully they are even more left leaning now!) it seems to me that Labour have to recognise that a Starmer government repeating New Labour’s idea of managing neoliberalism rather better than the Tories is not enough (and even Gordon Brown seems to accept this now, which must be... Read more
European Court of Human Rights
This is from 2016 but bears repeating if you haven’t seen it before – what was decidedly comedic now turns out to be a straight prophesy: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was set up in 1949. It is completely separate and has nothing to do with the EU. It was actually set up... Read more