Book review: of capital and car bombs
AS A non-technical explanation of how the processes outlined in Marx’s ‘Capital’ pan out in today’s world, David Harvey’s ‘The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism’ will prove pretty hard to beat. According to the jacket blurb, Harvey is now the world’s most cited academic geographer. I’m not sure how stiff the competition [...]
All in it together? Not FTSE 100 bosses
CILLIT Bang is the best bath cleaner there is, and Vanish stain remover has saved more than one of my shirts over the years. But these wonderful products would not sell in any lesser quantity if Bart Becht, chief executive of manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser, was not on 102 times Wayne Rooney’s wedge. Indeed, there is [...]
Hey, City Boy – bugger off, then
BARCLAYS is thinking of quitting the UK. That’s the front page splash on City AM, a histrionically rightwing freesheet that seems to subsist largely on advertising from spread betting firms. And we’re all doomed, doomed I tell ye, the breathless accompanying editorial from editor Allister Heath informs readers. It seems that billionaire boss Bob Diamond [...]
Two angry new blogs
Rage Against the Coalition is here. And Diary of a Benefit Scrounger is here. Check ‘em out, both are worth the read. Bookmark It
British Tea Party: discontent is not enough
ANGRY middle-aged white blokes with a grudge against politicians of all stripes, measured on a per capita basis, must surely make up a similar proportion of the population of this country as the comparative demographic does in the States. Yet somehow rightwing activists over here have not been able to tap into the spleen and [...]
Come back Shirley Porter, all is forgiven
DID the coalition go and make Dame Shirley Porter housing minister and I just missed the press release or something? I only ask after finding out about government plans to cut housing benefit, which could see one million people forced to move home. The regulations surrounding this area of the welfare state are already of [...]
Welcome to Dave’s transport caff (and free school)
POOR old Fraser Nelson seems genuinely mystified. The editor of The Spectator did ‘Any Questions’ on Radio Four last weekend, and it turns out that the audience was somewhat sceptical on the central plank of Tory/Lib Dem education policy. ‘When I said that free schools would give the poor the choice that only the rich [...]
Book review: time to junk permanent revolution?
I’M A two book a week man, in the way that some people are 20-a-day smokers or six pints a night boozers. While I have written the occasional full book review for this blog. and will continue to do so, this week and in future in intend to offer a few shorter notes on what [...]
Osborne isn’t working
SAATCHI & Saatchi’s ‘Labour isn’t working’ advertisement of 1979 is rightly hailed as one of the most effective political posters of all time. Just those three words, superimposed on an image of a queue snaking back from a dole office, were a major factor in the electoral success that year of Margaret Thatcher. The propaganda drew [...]
Comprehensive Spending Review: Labour’s secret counterplans revealed
I HAPPEN to have a copy of the briefing that the Parliamentary Labour Party issued to Labour MPs yesterday to tell them what to think about Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review. It bills itself as ever so exciting, hush-hush, need to know basis, on the QT stuff. At the foot of each page, the following menacing [...]
