Following up on the Euro-Nationalist Zombie post, here’s a thought. What if Peter Oborne had a point? Yeah, I know, but suspend the vomiting reflex for a moment. I’ve pointed out before that he is usually wrong, but often wrong in an interesting way. He’s long been convinced that the political elite is cool on…
Read More The UK and its enemiesThere are few things as powerful as an idea whose time has passed. So often, they finally get their chance after the historic moment has been and gone, when the circumstances have changed but the careers built on the idea no longer can. John Quiggin’s Zombie Economics applies this to macro-economic ideas. This is basically…
Read More Euro-nationalism, a zombie ideaOK, you’ve had some #savileweek, some housing disaster, some ISIS. Here’s your unicorn-chaser. If that doesn’t work, try this: they play “Salsoul Nugget” about 1.30.xx in and then dig into Aretha Franklin records.
Read More non-thursday music postSimon Hattenstone interviews Gordon Brown and thank God turns off his faux-naif shtick for a once or so. Brown: Going it alone, while still using the pound? “Instead of creating the levers of power for an independent Scotland, the SNP is suggesting a voluntary neo-colonial relationship with the rest of Britain. Scotland wouldn’t have any…
Read More Voluntary neo-colonialHere’s a description of ISIS moving into new territory. “They are ready to die, willingly. They are not afraid of anything,” said Capt. Iyad Shamsi, who witnessed the Islamists’ walkover in June in Abu Kamal, Euphrates river town on Syria’s eastern border with Iraq. But it, as the McClatchy reporter says, was a walkover. “They…
Read More ISIS strengths and weaknesses in one articleAditya Chakrabortty reports on the London Borough of Enfield’s housing department, under siege by the forces of Iain Duncan Smith. It looks like everything the bedroom tax critics thought might happen is happening, with the exception of the buy-to-let bandits going over the edge. Actually, that might be happening as well, but it’s hard to…
Read More The simple plan goes into actionOK, you asked for #savileweek and here it is. I’m determined to write him out of my head anyway. So, I read In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile, Dan Davies’ critical biography of Jimmy Savile. Before going any further that’s not our Dan, but rather a journalist who felt he was…
Read More #savileweek: the icon of unpopular populismThe Adam Smith Institute is trying to make itself right about rail privatisation with this chart: Because it goes up and to the right! And if you forget the whole 14 year bit from 1981 to 1995 where it was going up and to the right, you can claim this is down to railway privatisation…
Read More Here is a chart illustrating some data. Watch me say the exact oppositeThere’s something wrong with the Lib Dems isn’t there? I mean, apart from the whole “inflicting David Cameron on the country” thing. Pearce said that she would remain in the party in a more modest role. “So at the moment, not knowing quite where I fit in the party, I have still decided to remain…
Read More the token person who sits and smiles in the backgroundHere is a horrible piece of work. Tory MP Charlotte Leslie in the Grauniad says stuff. But Norman Warner is “brave” in a good way, though I disagree with him. Lord Warner, the former Labour health minister, has suggested that if we are to preserve our NHS, we should charge a £10 “membership fee” to…
Read More making TV programmes to make policy to go on TV with