The million pound benefit cap
I DID realise that Asda sold shedloads of baked beans and breakfast cereal, but until this morning I did not know that the UK wing of Wal-Mart had moved into the market for economic indicators as well. But thanks to Retail Week, I am now aware of something called the Asda Income Tracker, which measures [...]
Scottish independence: which partner gets the record collection?
NOT many books make such an impression that you can still remember the broad outline of their arguments three decades after reading them. But the second edition of Tom Nairn’s ‘The Break Up of Britain’, published in 1982, was the work that has shaped my thinking on nationalism within the British Isles ever since. If [...]
Political predictions for 2012: open thread
HAPPY New Year, readers. Rather then write anything substantial myself today – I am still feeling a tad delicate after somewhat exceeding government drink unit guidelines last night, to be honest – I will instead open the comments box for any reflections people may have on likely developments in the year ahead. Here at home, tensions [...]
What exactly is London’s problem with Liverpool?
LONDON has a Conservative mayor who famously accused Liverpool of displaying a ‘deeply unattractive psyche’, and even of ‘wallowing in its victim status’. But as a cockney myself, I reckon scousers can be forgiven for feeling that little bit chippy. Nor is Boris Johnson’s attitude any novelty within his party, as is demonstrated by today’s revelation that [...]
A tax on the drinking classes
I AM not a champagne socialist. But that is solely because I do not actually like the stuff. Otherwise, I fully endorse the maxim of the late Christopher Hitchens that cheap booze is a false economy. Give me Glenmorangie, or give me death. It is a pretty fair bet that David Cameron thinks along the [...]
Tabloids don’t have to be dumb
IT’S week six of the Leveson inquiry, and I for one have stopped following the details. The precise circumstances in which Piers Morgan got to hear recordings of conversations between Heather Mills and Paul McCartney is a topic that will fascinate few of us. Yet my guess would be that the proceedings will so far [...]
N30: trade unions only look dead
HARDLINERS. Militants itching for a fight. Michael Gove is in no doubt about who is responsible for N30. Yet there are a couple of fundamental flaws with the education secretary’s assertion that those taking part in Wednesday’s public sector stoppage are being manipulated by an unrepresentative clique of hard left union bosses. For a start, [...]
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion: who gets to read bad books?
KARL Popper singled out Plato’s ‘Republic’ as the blueprint for all modern totalitarianisms, while many other academics accord that status to Rousseau’s ‘The Social Contract’. I polished both of them off as a student, and I have kept the copies. Just like with the booze, I soon got tempted by the harder stuff. Show me a forbidden [...]
PASOK, PSOE: the suicide of social democracy
AFTER three decades during which the centre left first adapted to neoliberalism, and then adopted it wholesale, it is sometimes difficult to establish what exactly social democracy stands for these days. All of the major European parties that occupy this political space initially came into being to articulate working class demands, and were nominally committed [...]
British monarchy: scrap it altogether
‘OF THE various forms of government which have prevailed in the world,’ Edward Gibbon presciently remarked more than 200 years ago, ‘an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.’ In this respect at least, not a lot has changed over the past two centuries. Heaven only knows what the great historian would [...]
