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Have BBC bosses mislaid their manifesto?
2nd March | 3 comments | 1 person likes this
Let's get one thing straight before I launch into something that is inevitably going to be quite diatribey. I am not a BBC-loving lefty who thinks you can't touch the national institutions that made this country great, etc. I am a Tory-voting borderline market fundamentalist who, in principle, would not agree with the idea of distorting the entertainment market by demanding money from people in order to ensure a company...
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The toughest challenge of my life
15th February | 2 comments | 2 people like this
I had to tell the cleaner not to bother coming in this morning. Nobody should have to face the consequences of me having to watch 'Piers Morgan's Life Stories' other than myself. Altruism aside, I'm fairly sure some kind of human rights breach would have taken place the moment I asked her to deal with the broken glass/blood/toilet 'problem'.
For those of you who, like me, were unable to find ITV in... -
Politics of Parody Redux
11th February | 1 comments | 1 person likes this
As expected, Labour have launched their own poster. I use 'launched' loosely as it only exists online because, as mentioned previously, they have no money. But their problems go further than that. Here are some off the cuff reasons as to why Labour's poster is, simply, rubbish.
1. While their mockery of the Tories' first poster was entirely valid, they have learnt nothing from it. The Cameron NHS poster was very... -
The wobbly politics of the far left
25th January | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
A wobbly table appeared outside King’s college last week. Behind it was a woman and front of it was a man. The man was shouting things whilst holding a megaphone by his side. The table wobbled as he shouted, leaflets fell. Everyone walked by, bemused or unaffected. I was not one of them though, because, as usual, their sign caught my eye. “BASH THE FAR RIGHT BNP”, it suggested. It...
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The politics of parody
25th January | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
The same argument comes round every time there is an impending general election. The posters, slogans and well rehearsed soundbites are all revealed, and the loudest voices generally condemn them all as naff, shallow, ineffective or worse, counter-effective. They are evidence of an absence of real policy, substance and furthermore, why are they spending all this money on aggressive brand-politics when the country is flat-broke (that argument’s newer than the...
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MacAskill’s misconception of justice
24th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
So Abdel Basset al-Megrahi has been released and the world is busy dividing itself over the rights and wrongs of this decision. Considering the serious weight of this topic the debate was being conducted rather respectfully I thought, until Peter Mandelson upset everyone by appearing on the television, immediately lowering the tone by opening his mouth. There will never be a greater chance for poetic irony than Mandy going in...
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Alan Duncan’s irrational behaviour
13th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
So Alan Duncan has put his foot in it again. What to do with a politician who gets caught speaking his mind? There are several issues being vacuum-packed into one in the representations this story is receiving across various media. Duncan defenders have pounced on the argument that Heydon Prowse's behaviour was ungentlemanly because he was invited for a drink in Westminster by Duncan and used the opportunity to secretly record him. "What kind...
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We shall not be moved (again)
3rd August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
Apologies for my absence; I have been moving house. This isn’t supposed to be an introspective blog, but I have been racking my brains for the last few days in an attempt to make what I want to write somehow relevant to the world of politics and thus far I have failed to construct even a tenuous link, and time is dragging on. One may well come to me in...
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Google Conservatism in the post-bureaucratic age
8th July 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
One of the reasons I will always vote Conservative is because of their ideological belief in reducing the size of the state. The majority of 'problems', for which government seeks policy 'solutions', are national in nature - schools, hospitals, immigration, housing - but local in their specifics. One council might have a housing shortage but plenty of excellent schools, another might have a deficit of overseas workers, another might have...
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Jobs, speakers and no allowance
1st July 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
There has been much talk of jobs recently. You might have noticed a funny little man bobbing up and down across your news bulletins pontificating in medieval English about “the honour bestoweth upon me”, his every sound and deed pure affectation. This is John Bercow and he is the new Speaker. He is possibly the first man in history to get a job because he was universally hated by his...
