Merry Christmas: Class war isn’t over
Given that I have traveled from London to the north to spend Christmas with my family, this seems the perfect juncture to post this slice of Jeff Stelling genius. It can only be the kind of people who...
View ArticleDance wiv me, Prime Minister
Dizzee Rascal claimed that Barack Obama owes his status as the President elect to hip-hop during his infamous appearance on Newsnight. This seems a little bizarre but one of Tony Blair’s former speech...
View ArticleThe immense power of human vanity
Lionel Barber, FT editor, thinks that one of the most underrated events of the past year was “the G20 summit in Washington featuring the leading industrialised nations as well as Brazil, China, India,...
View ArticleKids shouldn’t expect to be cock-a-hoop every minute of every day
“You can’t expect to feel cock-a-hoop every minute of every day”, rightly writes Mark E. Smith in his hilarious autobiography. “My Mam and Dad’s generation understood this”. In contrast, Dr Carol Craig...
View ArticleQuangos leave all a blur
Andrew Rawnsley yesterday wrote something that I have long thought myself but rarely seen expressed. “Too many”, quangos, “have grown into bloated, pretentious organisations, interested above all else...
View ArticleDo we need American socialism?
I loved David Peace’s The Damned United and I am very much looking forward to the upcoming release of the film version. In the trailer below Michael Sheen as Brian Clough bellows “football is all about...
View ArticleHow ethical can East Dulwich be?
Newsnight’s “Ethical Man”, Justin Rowlett, spent one year doing all that he could to reduce the carbon footprint of his family. He went to more considerable lengths to do so than, I think, the...
View ArticleMPs: Jeering at the hands that feed them
Below is the now infamous footage of Michael Martin losing his rag earlier in the week. The constitutional expert Vernon Bogdanor observes: “The authority of the Speaker rests on utter impartiality,...
View ArticleI am a European … What does that mean?
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, argued that “on Saturday 15 February (2003), a new nation was born on the street. This new nation is the European nation”. This conclusion was...
View ArticleDinner Party Politics
Ok, I’ve been to dinner parties. But not in Islington. Though, I probably am in the “chattering classes”. Still, I’ve never been at dinner parties where “innate and uninformed” prejudices against...
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