History lesson for all of the youngsters who have wandered over: the Rolling Stones were (or rather, are, excuse me) a rock n roll outfit who formed in London in 1962. Amazingly, they appear to still be together, at least from a legal entity perspective if little else. At their best, the fusion of Mick […]
Archives for March 2015
The Penguins of Madagascar – a review
I saw this in the cinema when it came out – with my daughter, obviously. I should mention that the only time I go to the cinema these days is to watch kids movies for obvious, parent with young children reasons. So I’m pretty picky about them now. Anyway, I’m using the DVD release of […]
Len McCluskey’s sideways compliment to the Liberal Democrats, aka does he think talking about this stuff really helps Labour?
Yesterday, Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, thought it a good idea to talk about just what the unions might get up to should the Tories win the general election. It essentially involves striking no matter what. This is all in response to the Tories looking to create laws around strike thresholds. Namely, that at […]
Why the Tories gagging of the civil service is a bad idea
The Tories have introduced some changes to the civil service code this week I have a feeling they rather hoped would fly under the radar. The changes mean that any civil servant who is caught speaking to the press without the written consent of a minister could face the sack. This is very bad for […]
The five greatest hip hop acts of the 20th century
Hip hop was invented sometime around 1975 by a DJ in the South Bronx who called himself Kool Herc. His idea, like all brilliant ones, was essentially simple. He played mostly funk tunes at his gigs, and he noted that the bit of every song people seemed to like the most was the drum breaks. […]
My thoughts on Budget 2015
First of all, budgets this close to the general election are kind of meaningless anyhow. Particularly in this age of hung parliaments. I mean, even if we get another Lib-Tory, there will almost certainly be an “emergency” budget in the summer. So what’s the point? Historically, they are opportunities for the governing party to present […]
What do the British people really want the government to do on border checks?
Yesterday morning, James Brokenshire, the Tory minister for security and immigration, was given a rough time of it on the Today programme. Not, as you might guess if you’d tuned out of the immigration debate of late, because of missed immigration targets or border checks being lax. In fact, he was being given a hard […]
How the SNP surge might actually help the Lib Dems in Scotland
It has been assumed by many a political pundit that the Lib Dems are facing an electoral massacre in Scotland on May 7th. Several have predicted that the party will hold only two of their current eleven seats – with some even suggesting that Charles Kennedy will lose his seat, bringing the Lib Dem representation […]
Seriously, who cares if Grant Shapps had a second job as a web marketer
Today the Guardian is running with a story about Grant Shapps having had a second job as a “multimillion-dollar web marketer” overlapping with his time as a Member of Parliament. It’s obvious why the newspaper is running this hard given we’re weeks away from a general election, but I want to talk seriously about this […]
If the neoliberal hegemony is crumbling, what exactly is going to take its place?
Seemingly at least once a week, I read in the Guardian an article about how capitalism is in its death throes. What’s conspicuous by its absence in every single one of these pieces is what exactly is going to replace it as an economic system. In the middle of the 20th century, the Left had […]