“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 […]
Posts under ‘As I Please’
Corbyn and the Israel/Islam/Putin/Trident critique
Jan 29th, 2016 by David Osland.An entire journalistic cottage industry now exists (such as here and here and here and here) devoted to making the claim that Jeremy Corbyn is an overgrown adolescent CNDer harbouring a lingering atavistic attachment to Russian nationalism, with participants frequently coming as close as libel laws permit to averring outright anti-semitism on the Labour leader’s part. […]
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Peter Oborne interviewed: “A soft apartheid towards Muslims is emerging in Britain”
Jan 20th, 2016 by Owen Jones.Peter Oborne is an anti-establishment Conservative and is anything but predictable. We talked about his belief that David Cameron’s government has constructed a narrative about Islam which distinguishes between ‘good’ secular Muslims and ‘bad’ devout ones, leading to a ‘soft apartheid’ emerging in Britain. We also discussed his surprising views on Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership, […]
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On the narcissism of Simon Danczuk
Jan 5th, 2016 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Hand on heart, I’m not Simon Danczuk’s biggest fan. Of all the Labour MPs of this Parliament and the last, his record has been downright appalling. At times when UKIP were surging, he courted will-he-won’t-he defection rumours in the gutter press. He’s taken to the airwaves to attack socialists as the equivalents of the BNP, […]
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We may not like Simon Danczuk but he is entitled to fair treatment and natural justice
Jan 1st, 2016 by Jon Lansman.I am not a fan of Simon Danczuk although in all my encounters with him he has been unfailingly polite and courteous which does count for something. He has a number of political views I don’t share, he shows far too little respect to a newly elected leader of the Labour Party, and some of his […]
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Question Time and the the BBC’s problem with black people
Dec 22nd, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.David Lammy early this month made waves in theQuestion Time obsessives’ community by pointing out how limited the panel composition is. He wrote: Within the meagre 9.2% of Question Time slots filled by a BAME panellist, there is a staggering lack of diversity. Black women have appeared just 16 times in five years, and 12 […]
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Farewell again then, Dan Hodges
Dec 16th, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.You know Twitter has reached peak absurdity when someone like Dan Hodges – really only known by super hardcore political people – has become a trending topic. The occasion of Dan’s elevation to internet celebrity is yet another piece of finely crafted miserablism for the Telegraph. His double whammy of likening Jeremy to hard right […]
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Jeremy Corbyn follows the example of Lincoln
Dec 3rd, 2015 by Andy Newman.Possibly the best film I have ever seen about politics is Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. It is partly inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s extraordinary book, Team of Rivals, that includes biographies of Edward Bates, Salmon Chase and William Seward, who served in Lincoln’s cabinet, but were also opponents of his who had themselves sought the Republican […]
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When real wars shade into the simulated environments of the war game….
Dec 2nd, 2015 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 […]
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Historical allusions: a helpful guide for Blairites and appeal for cooperation
Nov 30th, 2015 by David Osland.Gordon Bennett, those Blairites (a historical term for people roughly corresponding with the 4.5%ers – Ed) can’t half be a bunch of drama queens sometimes. The merest slight to the amour propre of the tattered remnants of New Labourism often meets with hyperbolic allusion to some of the most dramatic events of recent centuries by way […]
