Posts under ‘Culture’

The symbolic politics of England football: an imagined community of eleven people

by Mark Perryman.

Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football explores what Monday’s announcement of the England Euro 2016 squad tells us about modern Englishness I was six at the time of England winning the World Cup in ’66. Despite it remaining somewhat of an obsession of mine – to declare an interest I’ve just edited the collection 1966 and […]

Labour and the Big Mac: Snobbery or principle?

by Phil Burton-Cartledge.

What kind of company should be allowed to have a corporate stand at Labour Party conference? Should all-comers be taken provided they stump up the readies, or as a minimum are they expected to subscribe to a set of standards around employment relations, trade union recognition, and ethical practices (whatever they are)? I ask because […]

Where have all the flowers gone?

by Mark Perryman.

Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football reviews the new wave of rebel music It has become almost a mantra, there’s no protest music any more, discuss. In the mainstream maybe, though Beyoncé for one by following up her embrace of feminism with the message that the Black Panthers matter seems to confound even that. The trouble for […]

Ireland always rising

by Mark Perryman.

For St Patrick’s Day Mark Perryman outlines the meaning of the forthcoming Easter Rising Centenary for models of Britishness St Patrick’s Day. Down the local, one of the best night outs of the year, a non-stop party drenched in all things Irish. A celebration of Ireland’s freedom, which can never be entirely separated from history […]

Terry Wogan and the celebrity system

by Phil Burton-Cartledge.

“We’ll never see their like again” is a refrain common to the passing of major league celebrities. With David Bowie this was because of his profound influence on pop music and performance, an impact that is probably impossible for anyone to repeat ever. And then there is Terry Wogan who, I would suggest, is of […]

When real wars shade into the simulated environments of the war game….

by Phil Burton-Cartledge.

The sometimes mischievous French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard earned himself a bit of notoriety in the wake of Operation Desert Storm by declaring that the the Gulf War did not take place. Of course, he wasn’t suggesting it didn’t take place in the sense that conspiracy theorists maintain NASA didn’t land men on the Moon. Baudrillard’s […]

Left Book Club re-launch planned for autumn with first book on Syriza

by Newsdesk.

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone is among a string of authors set to be published by a new Left Book Club, which launches this autumn. A collective of writers, activists and academics have been working on the project with the radical publisher Pluto Press. The project aims to emulate the original 1936-1948 club in provoking thought […]

Why Brand-ing Miliband was the right move

by Phil Burton-Cartledge.

A Frost/Nixon for our age? No, but the media reaction to Russell Brand’s encounter with Ed Miliband is out of all proportion to what was said. The actual content of the interview is pretty innocuous, at least from the standpoint of grizzled lefties and hardened politicos. Yet where Brand’s core audience are concerned, the teens to the […]

A manifesto of good reads

by Mark Perryman.

Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football selects his reading for the 2015 General Election Campaign The much-missed indie band, well by some of us of a certain age, Sultans of Ping, had a great line in one of their barnstormer numbers “I like your manifesto, put it to the test ’tho.” We are told in all seriousness […]

Why the Establishment loves Jeremy Clarkson

by Phil Burton-Cartledge.

Petrolheads everywhere, sob into your empty oil cans. For Top Gear is, as was, no more. The verdict couldn’t have been anything else. Whatever you might think about Jeremy Clarkson, which in my case is not a lot, it was impossible even for him to cling on to his job after a 20 minute tirade, […]

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