The class politics of standardised mortality rates
BRYNCETHIN? It’s some village near Bridgend, apparently. Never heard of it until this morning, to be honest. Wouldn’t like to guess as to how you pronounce the name. However, the place finds itself in the news this morning, after data released to parliament revealed that the age-adjusted death rate per nominal 100,000 people is 1,499. [...]
Has the Metropolitan Police really changed?
SIR William Macpherson’s famous observation back in 1999 that the Metropolitan Police was ‘institutionally racist’ did not come as any particular revelation to me. That is because the Met is the closest thing I have to a family business. My grandfather and two uncles were all London coppers in decades gone by, and there have [...]
Psycho Stapleton probably didn’t have a gun licence
ANYONE who can calmly give his name as ‘Psycho’ when facing murder charges in a magistrates’ court is unlikely to be too diligent in his compliance with state stipulations for the possession of firearms. So while this is pure guesswork on my part, it may well be that Kieran Stapleton did not have a licence [...]
The poor don’t have a party
THE Tories are now the party of the poor, Iain Duncan Smith told a fringe meeting at Conservative Party conference this week. That he can even get away with such a surreal claim without attracting widespread derision underlines just how far the issue of poverty reduction no longer looms large on the political agenda. I [...]
Ryan Giggs, Imogen Thomas: the class politics of celebrity culture
THERE were a few years in my life in which I was vaguely interested in the private lives of rock and movie stars. Broadly speaking, I had grown out of that kind of stuff by the time I made it to college. Sometimes I hear tell that friends of mine participate in clandestine relationships with [...]
The return of the letter bomb
FOOTBALL isn’t a matter of life and death, according to an aphorism attributed to legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly. It’s much more important than that. Obviously there are those who would deny the first half of that contention. Three figures associated with Celtic – a Scottish football club with an Irish-Catholic support base – have [...]
The evil anarchist plot against Kate and Wills
PEOPLE react to royal weddings in different ways, I guess. Personally I am taking advantage of the chance to get 17 days off work for seven days annual leave, and will underline my lack of patriotic fervour by grabbing a holiday in the Deep South and Midwest. If all goes according to plan, I could [...]
Clubs can’t stop offensive football chants
I HAD never before today bothered to ponder the religious affiliations of PSV Eindhoven supporters. But I gather that, if anything, the Dutch football club has a solidly protestant tradition. So why fans of Ranger thought it apt to launch into sectarian songs at both legs of the recent Europa Cup tie between the two [...]
Wearing a niqab is not like being a Goth
WHAT’S the difference between donning a burqa and doing your best to look like the bass player in the Sisters of Mercy, Brendan O’Neill asks on his Daily Telegraph blog. Why should those who adhere to religiously-inspired Islamic dress codes be regarded any differently from hoodie wearers or Essex girls in oversized sunglasses? After all, [...]
Sheffield families vs the super rich: who flies more often?
MILLIONAIRE Tory Oliver Letwin has come out against building new airports because he doesn’t want ‘more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays’. However, I suspect that he has missed the primary sources of additional demand for aviation services. One of the many interesting findings of the 2011 Wealth Report, produced by property consultant [...]
