2011 versus 1968
I WAS not old enough to be politically engaged in 1968. Yet even though I was only eight at the time, I can nevertheless recollect some of the dramatic events of that year, including footage of Vietnam and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. After reading numerous books on the period and talking to lefties born [...]
Japanisation: the economics of extended stagnation
NEOLOGISM of the week award goes to the Financial Times for coining the term ‘Japanisation’ as a shorthand description for current economic trends in Europe and North America. You can read just what various commentators intend by the word here, but if you want it in plain English, the underlying idea is that the rest [...]
Libya after Gaddafi
AFTER exercising a dictatorship over Libya for more than four decades, Muammer Gaddafi now seems to be just hours away from the end of his rule. Following a bitterly-fought and surprisingly close run civil war that lasted for six months, the insurgents have reportedly almost completed the capture of Tripoli. The development meets with approval [...]
Tobin Tax: not quite the Fourth Reich
I SUPPOSE it is a short step from accusing both Gordon Brown and David Cameron of wanting to ‘Sovietise’ Britain to proclaiming Angela Merkel guilty of stealing pages from the Hitler playbook. But it is analysis and insight of precisely this calibre, nuance and measured tone that has made rightwing commentator Simon Heffer the intellectual [...]
David Starkey: ‘white negroes’ are nothing new
HISTORIAN David Starkey’s contention on Newsnight last Friday that ‘whites have become black’ has already attained such infamy that there is little point in heaping further obloquy upon his ugly little racist person. But what really made me laugh when I watched the footage was his seeming unawareness that for many decades now, hundreds of [...]
How the Tories dealt with riots in the past
If the people are turbulent and riotous, nothing is to be done for them on account of their evil dispositions. If they are obedient and loyal, nothing is to be done for them, because their being quiet and contented is a proof that they feel no grievance – Edmund Burke, 1797 THE trouble in Manchester [...]
London riots: initial reaction
FRANKLY my head is still spinning from last night’s rioting in London and elsewhere, which I watched on BBC News 24, Sky, and live on the streets of Dalston. You can see a short clip I shot as things started to get heavy where I live here. Once I collect my thoughts, I’ll try to [...]
Tottenham: bloody good hiding revisited
THE last time Tottenham burned, the local Labour Party was quick to takes sides. ‘The police were to blame for what happened,’ announced council leader and later MP Bernie Grant. ‘And what they got was a bloody good hiding’. By contrast, current Westminster representative David Lammy has been quick to distance himself not only from [...]
