May 2012
2 posts
4 tags
The Conservative Soul: Why the right ‘Do God’
Whilst living in America, Christopher Hitchens derived great pleasure by reminding the American conservatives, who had become his allies following his support for the war in Iraq, that if they really were the enemies of big government then they ought to be avid supporters of secularism. He had spent the later years of his extraordinary life fighting religion and promoting humanist ideals, two very...
The Precedent of the French Republic
In the wake of the post-budget “omnishambles” and a “disappointing” slide back into recession, the Conservative Party has not only plummeted in the polls but has also been divided by accusations of arrogance and elitism directed towards David Cameron and George Osborne. In response to this it appears the Prime Minister is willing to appease the backbench detractors in his own party by putting off...
April 2012
1 post
The Grand Prix (almost) Nobody Won
While a handful of multi-millionaires drove their logo emblazoned cars over the tarmac inside a tightly secured perimeter evoking memories of the Green Zone in Baghdad, peaceful and not so peaceful protests erupted outside. The Bahrain Grand Prix was supposed to showcase an island that had returned to safely, stability and transparency, instead it will probably be remembered as an international...
March 2012
4 posts
The Sunday Times Have Excelled - But Last Year it...
It’s another week of good news for members of the 1% (that figure being the percentage of the population who find David Cameron likeable enough to sit down to dinner with) because it turns out that in return for a small six-figure annual donation you’ll get to suggest your ideas to our Prime Minister in person.
That’s because the clocks went back this weekend, all the way back...
1 tag
David Cameron and the Prodigal Swan
David Cameron is “extraordinary”, he is “the best thing we have left on this planet” according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The celebrated Lebanese philosopher even boasts about his informal visits to Downing Street to meet Dave in his t-shirt and jeans. Taleb is the acclaimed author of The Black Swan; hailed by The Sunday Times as one of the twelve most influential books...
Good Versus Evil
Over 60 million people have now watched the ‘Kony 2012’ video, a 30-minute film attempting to raise awareness of Joseph Kony and the LRA. This has been of special interest to me because last summer, when I was volunteering at Amnesty TV, we spent hours asking ourselves how we could make a viral video that would make young-westerns care about human rights abuses. This has always been a hard task...
The 1% Have Tripped and Landed in the Lifeboat
Last week 537 business leaders signed a letter urging that the 50p tax rate on very high earners be immediately scrapped in George Osborne’s upcoming budget. On Question Time the conservative dinosaur John Redwood and the random bigotry generator David Starkey took it in terns to lament the two-year-old tax rate, arguing that scrapping it in favour of a “more competitive rate”...
February 2012
1 post
Good Ideas Don't Need to be Protected by Prison...
Why shouldn’t we execute homosexuals? I know it seems like a stupid and offensive line of inquiry, but if you can think of just one reason why we shouldn’t hang people for having a particular sexuality then you’ve just though of a reason why three Muslims from Derby shouldn’t have been imprisoned last week. One of the men, Ihjaz Ali, is set to spend two years in prison for...
January 2012
2 posts
2 tags
The Health & Safety Albatross
This week in an article in the Evening Standard David Cameron claimed his government was “waging war against the excessive health and safety culture that has become an albatross around the neck of British businesses.” The figurative Albatross he is referring to is from ‘The Rime of the ancient Mariner’, a bleak poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in which a sailor, having ...
The Protester's Dilemma
On the 31 October 1958, a celebrated intellectual delivered a speech in Oxford called “The Two Concepts of Liberty” and it has defined our view of freedom ever since.
Isaiah Berlin characterised two separate definitions of liberty; negative and positive. Berlin argued that negative liberty was the freedom to do anything concerning an individual’s own life to pursue ...
November 2011
1 post
3 tags
Introducing Wikispeaks
In the last decade the nature of national & international news coverage has been revolutionised by anonymous blogging. We live in a time when almost anybody can write almost anything they like. Or at least that’s what we would like to believe. However many people, in both the developed and developing world could retain their jobs, or at worse their freedom, if they exercised total freedom...
October 2011
1 post
The Other Expectancy Culture
This week Sir Alan Sugar attacked what he called “expectancy culture”. In a bid to plug his new series of ‘Young Apprentice’ he said, “There’s too much of what I call an expectancy culture of things being provided. And I’m afraid to say the goody-goody benefits system we have in this country has made it a bit too cushy for people”. So what ...
September 2011
1 post
3 tags
The Precedent of the United States
This week, George Osborne bowed to public (and Lib Dem) pressure to put off any definitive decision on the 50p tax rate on high earners. However, The Sunday Times still devoted its front page, a two-page spread and an editorial to trying to convince us that it would be in all of our best interests if the richest 1 per cent paid less tax. The idea is simple: if we want the world’s top...
August 2011
3 posts
3 tags
Broken Glass
London is currently experiencing the worse outbreak of public disorder in a quarter of a century and while its easy to call for tougher policing and the use of water cannons we must remind ourselves that a failure to address the problems at the route of the ongoing rioting in London will leave us vulnerable to it’s timely repetition.
It’s becoming clear that the shooting of Mark Duggan is no...
3 tags
March 2011
3 posts
2 tags
The other timebomb
For the sake of this argument I’m going to open my mind. Its a hypothetical situation so bare with me. Perhaps the spending cuts are necessary. Perhaps their really is no other way. Perhaps its fair that we pay for the greed driven failure of the banking system. Perhaps it’s only coincidence that fits in perfectly with Thatcherite ideology. Perhaps David Cameron loves the welfare...
3 tags
The language of the unheard
I spent Saturday watching a protest made up of 450,000 peaceful people being overshadowed by about 200 angry anarchists. A Sky news commentator regretfully announced that “unfortunately this will make the headlines” and of course it did make the headline on his own sensationalist rubber necking network. At one point Ed Miliband made a speech to the demonstration, but the second he...
3 tags
The emperors have no clothes
Since the start of their continuing release late last year, a quarter of a million American diplomatic cables have been leaked to the world’s press. In recent months, coverage of their actual content seems to have dwindled; the story of Wikileaks has been vastly overshadowed by the on going soap opera that is Julian Assange. The Australian cyber-activist, chief executive...
February 2011
2 posts
5 tags
The 21st Century Fox
On the American cable channel Fox Business an inexplicable whooshing noise accompanies graphics resembling the opening titles of robot wars as a grey middle-aged presenter introduces his boss live on air. “Chairman thanks very much for joining us we appreciate it sir”, “good afternoon” replies the Australian media baron. Both men smile and the presenter seems relaxed before saying “The story...
Anthem for culturally deprived youth
In today’s guardian Dan Hancox describes ‘Lethal Bizzle’s Pow’ as an “anthem for kettled youth”. As much as I like the track I can’t help feeling disappointed that a group of East London teenagers flattering themselves for 3 minutes is the best we can do.
I was at the December 9th student march and yes Pow and Tempa T’s hilariously over the top...
January 2011
1 post
Breaking the Silence
I need to speak out, about an issue that many are too scared to mention. A culture of silence has developed around it due to the stigma attached to talking about it. However something has to change, I’m done with being quiet and it has to be said that when I go out I can’t hear shit. Last weekend I went to hip-hop night in a bar and had to communicate with friends I hadn’t...
December 2010
5 posts
3 tags
A real war hero
I just wanted to ask readers to spare a thought this Christmas for Private Bradley Manning. He was the American solider who leaked the Iraq war documents to wikileaks and has subsequently spent the last seven months in solitary confinement and on suicide watch awaiting trial. Private Bradley Manning allegedly came across this video of unprovoked US troops murdering civilians & journalists...
2 tags
Reality TV obscuring reality on BBC website
The picture above is a screen-grab from the BBC news website. Thanks to this ‘news story’ the final of this years apprentice was ruined for me. Evidently the same thing happened to broadcasting demigod Charlie Brooker, here a few of his tweets.
So I spend the night writing & studiously avoiding finding out who won The Apprentice… and the BBC News website spoils it with...
Defending the seemingly indefensible
During the height of the panic on the streets of London last week cowardly riot police dragged cerebral palsy suffer Jody McIntyre out of his wheelchair, the footage can be seen here. Later Mr MacIntyre was interviewed on BBC news. The interview, hosted by Ben Brown is amazing because it contains what might be the most ridiculous question in the history of journalism.
Theirs a suggestion that...
November 2010
10 posts
The argument students have to make
The student protest may or may not be a lost cause but there is one definitive argument that has to be made if our case is to win. It’s an argument that Aaron Porter and other NUS spokesmen seem unable to make. The only way for students to win is to convince the nation that paying higher education is in the interest of everybody and that is why everybody should help to pay for it.
When we wake...
The excuses of Nick Clegg
I read Nick Clegg’s piece for todays guardian. He was attacking Ed Milliband and branded him an “old progressive” and called the coalition the “new progressives”. According to Nick Clegg the ‘old progressives’ are dogmatically in favour of bigger government while ‘new progressives’ will do whatever it takes to advance social mobility. Please...
Nothing matters cause we all love kittens
It was strange watching BBC news this moaning. They were asking people to text in their opinions as to who they thought were more intelligent between cats and dogs. Its never insightful asking people who have never studied animals for boring anecdotal evidence. Picture the screen; some archive footage of poodles while ‘journalists’ read out texts from the kind of person with nothing...
American Midterms: USA Swings Right
The morning after America rejected the Obama administration in the midterm elections a humble president stated that “we were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn’t change how things got done”. In that quote in capsulated that nationwide apathy that saw his base stay at home. Gone were the passionate crowds holding the “change we can believe in” signs. Jobs had been too slow to...
1 tag
The only chance to save your brand
Remember May? Remember those existing days between the election and the birth of the coalition. David Cameron’s conservatives were scuttling into government but I didn’t matter because the Liberal Democrats were going with them. They were going to stop the Estonians from tearing down the state.
Since New Labour swept to power in 1997 political parties have become brands. Before May the...
1 tag
Section 106
On the 5th of November the shadow immigration minister, Phil Woolas was stripped of his status as an MP. The constituency he won the right to represent (Oldham East and Saddleworth) in the election will now go back to the polls. Why? Because Phil Woolas released publications lying about another candidate. In doing so he broke section 106 of the Representation of the People act 1983.
...
2 tags
Is David Cameron a Narcissist?
It emerged this week that our prime minister had hired a personal photographer and 25 other ‘vanity staff’ and put them on the government payroll. While axing thousands of civil service jobs to reduce the deficit, David ‘we’re all in this together’ Cameron feels the need to have professional photos of himself looking good. I could talk about the hypocrisy of a man worth £30million...
2 tags
An Idiot Abroad
I always enjoy browsing the guardian website but today I found something amazingly backward and now I’m going to tear it limb from limb. It’s called ‘Lloyd Marcus’s tea party blog’, yesterdays post is entitled “the people have spoken, Obamacare must go”. Let’s do this.
“The Democrats are lying. Signing Obamacare into law against our will and the constitution is tyranny”
OK Lloyd before you...
3 tags
1936
The morning after America rejected the Obama administration in the midterm elections a humble president stated that “we were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn’t change how things got done”. In that quote in capsulated that nationwide apathy that saw his base stay at home. Gone were the passionate crowds holding the “change we can believe in” signs. Jobs had been too slow to...
3 tags
November Spawned a Monster
November 2008 that is, when the tea party put the kettle on. Its now two years since Barack Obama was elected to the white house on a wave of optimism unmatched in American history. Over that time the optimism has faded away and on the 2nd of November will get a chance to see just how disillusioned the American public really are when they vote in the midterm elections. Last week the Democrats...
October 2010
7 posts
BBC Three memo (leaked)
Dear employees
I know a lot of you are eager to pitch new ideas for new documentaries at me, but before you do its important that I explain how things work here. As you know our target audience is 16-34 year olds, and as we know almost all 16-34 year olds are idiots. So don’t bother pitching informative documentaries hosted by experts. I’m pretty sure that if a young person is...
1 tag
Join me in prayer
Dear Lord, who art in heaven you surly deserves all the praise in the world. I am praying to thank you for my new freedom. While I somewhat appreciate the effort of the hundreds of men and women who traveled from all over the world and worked tirelessly to free me and my fellow minders. I would like to thank you for saving me as you are all powerful and (needless to say) deserve all of the...
1 tag
Rise of the Nutters USA
“I’m not a witch” is a very curious way to start an election campaign advert, but if you appear on national television and claim to have “dabbled in witchcraft” you might need a disclaimer if you expect anybody to vote for you. Yes this is Christine O’Donnell a republican/tea party candidate running in America’s November mid-term election. But...
1 tag
Heavyweight Hypocrites
Ladies and gentleman welcome to Westminster. In the yellow corner, weighing in at 57 parliamentary seats its the liberal democrats. Here’s an interesting photo.
Yes its liberal democrat party leader Nick Clegg holding up a sighed document reading “I pledge to vote against any increase in fees”. Thats what the lib-dems do when they want your vote. Today lib-dem business...
a big bag of mashed up jackass
This is a retraction. Back in June I slated Seth Macfalane for inviting Rush Limbaugh to do a cameo on Family guy. Rush Limbaugh is racist, sexist and idiotic. He’s an overweight, drug attickted, bigot or as Keith Olbermann put it “a big bag of mashed up jackass”.
So back in June I was very disappointed when Seth Macfalane announced he would perform a voice cameo on Family...
Helpful banking
Who’s seen those nice natwest adverts? You know the nice friendly bank staff who care about your problems. The slogan is “Helpful Banking”, but natwest (part of the Royal Bank of Scotland) is the exact opposite. If you’ve been watching the news you will know that our government has no money and are having to cut services and jobs leaving millions of us worse off. Where...
London Zoo
On Tuesday I was granted a free and exclusive look behind the scenes at London Zoo. My cousin Elliot showed me around. It was his last day so we spent it in back rooms with other outgoing staff passing round snakes and lizards, like splifs at a party. it wasn’t long before the ethics of the zoo were raised. Is it right to cage an animal? Elliot told me that before he worked at the zoo...
September 2010
9 posts
2 tags
All in all he's just another prick in the wall
I’ve been wanting to write this since this blog started but i’ve held back. Possibly from a mixture of misplaced hope and admiration. I’m not an American but America matters and it mattered to me. On the 4th of November 2008 I stayed up all night to watch history in the making. Two years later I no longer believe Barack Obama to be a ray of hope but a brilliant con man, and...
Sack the Taxman to make money
We have no money and David Cameron’s solution is massive cuts to public services to reduce the deficit as fast as possible. Some people have suggest that cutting so much so fast is an excuse for old fashioned Tory privatization. They are saying that Cameron is only decreasing the size of the government to increase the size of big business’s as they will happily step in to profit from...
Pope Friction
I’ve just watched four ex-prime ministers and members of both the house of commons and house of Lords. He was taken though the streets of London in a plastic box surrounded by police, that seemed like of a lot of security just keep him away from the children at the side of the road.
When he arrived he used his speech to say “There are those who would advocate that the voice of...
Nine years of exactly what Bin Laden wanted
Nine years after the attacks on the World Trace Centre you will find few people who retrospectively support the response of the Bush Administration. Yes it was the worse attack ever to take place of American soil but the USA has never been occupied like Europe or bombed like London. Instead of seeing 9/11 for what it was, an attack by a small group of radicals. Bush and Blair declared a war on...
Orwell that ends well
Big Brother, you have been evicted, please leave the channel 4 schedule. Tonight it will. Big Brother stared as a social experiment 10 years ago. A few years later we all forgot that the supposed peril of Airstrip One was the lack of privacy. Instead thousands of us auditioned to be cast under the eye of Big Brother. The desire to be fame was so rampant that the Big Brother house became a...
2 tags
Condemned
In a now quiet and peaceful corner of the German city of Nuremberg there is a motorcycle test centre overlooked by a concrete stage. If you push away the weeds growing out of the cracks and climb the crumbling stage you will find a plaque. On it are the timeless words of George Santayana. Translated into English it reads “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it”.
...