The European Union, in pursuit of an austerity agenda supported only by the elite, has now effectively suspended democracy in two European countries. We have now, within the space of a week, entered the age of the Technocrat government (described brilliantly by one writer in The Times as ‘a form of civilian junta’). It is [...]
Last week’s seminar at the Frontline Club asked a very pertinent question of the Occupy London movement pitched outside St. Paul’s. What do you want? I was surprised to see from the show of journalistic hands that the majority in the room did not know exactly what the protesters are camped out for, though, given [...]
Last night, the American House of Representatives passed legislation to raise the debt ceiling and heavily cut public spending – a historic move if you take into account the first has never been conditional on the latter. Today, the Senate unsurprisingly passed it. This trimming of the budget was inevitable considering the normalisation of neoliberal policies. [...]
A version of this article was first published in International Tax Review Bongo players, Robin Hood, men dressed as drag dinner ladies and Mrs Doyle from Father Ted proclaiming the only tea she does not like is poverty greeted activists as they filed into Westminster Central Hall to lobby their MPs. But behind the fun [...]
Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has just provided yet more evidence that he is, in fact, an odious little shit. In a speech to a union conference, he warned that if widespread public sector strikes take place (which seems likely), the government would enact new anti-strike legislation. This is part of the speech obtained by the [...]
“There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading…To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it [...]
The International Monetary Fund has released a paper entitled Inequality, Leverage and Crisis making the case that inequality was an ‘underlying cause of the Great Recession of 2008-2009′, The Telegraph reports: “Global unemployment remains at record highs, with widening income inequality adding to social strains,” he [IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn] said, citing turmoil in North Africa as [...]
When explaining the Conservative vision of the ‘Big Society’ to the public, Cameron and co. have always emphasised the role to be played by the voluntary sector (after all, most people would agree that charities are generally a good thing). The state, they claim, often ‘crowds out’ other non-government organisations that are better suited to the task of [...]
“There’s always a bigger fish.” – Qui-Gon Jinn Paul Krugman on his New York Times blog notes a symptom of just how far the West has regressed in the distribution of income: so much of America’s wealth is concentrated in the top 1% of the income scale that those only just below actually feel insecure about [...]
Meet Eric. He’s an ordinary schoolboy who lives at 29 Acacia Road. But what most people don’t know about Eric is that he leads something of a double life. For whenever Eric eats a banana, an amazing transformation occurs. You see, Eric is Bananaman. I felt a bit like Eric today, running from my city [...]
