It seems a constant of British political life that the public is shocked by ongoing revelations regarding the machinations of the rich and powerful. It sometimes seems as if the campaigning journalist is the radical’s best friend, whether passing on papers of diplomatic intrigues, or showing the ‘moral stance’ of the current government to be [...]
The sleepy little market town of Beccles rarely makes it into the news. The most exciting thing to happen here since three turnips were stolen from the village fete in 1833 was the discovery last summer that carts move more efficiently with rotating circular devices attached to the undercarriage. I spent 25 years of my [...]
It has been an uncomfortable 24 hours for Vince Cable. Yesterday the Telegraph published secret recordings of the business secretary speaking to a couple of journalists who posed as his constituents. He will certainly find it more difficult to look cabinet colleagues in the eye after boasting of his “nuclear” capacity to bring down the government. [...]
Today’s comprehensive spending review delivered long-predicted cuts to welfare and housing. Even poor old EMA, bless her, got the chop. But perhaps the deepest cuts have been to journalists’ vocabularies. Plenty of column inches over the coming months and years will be devoted to the government’s harshest measures. But if I hear one more journalist [...]
I am a history buff. As such I find libraries and the smell of old history books seriously exciting. During a recent visit to Northumberland (Reuben would not approve) I spent several wonderful hours exploring the history section of the reasonably famous Barter Books in Alnwick. (See here: http://bit.ly/9D7xvL). I’m a vegetarian, but enormous books on the [...]
For a long time we have heard about the dearth of journalistic jobs. Newspapers have struggled to “adapt their business models” to the epoch of everything written being free. Meanwhile other kinds of businesses are arising to pick up the slack, and take on underemployed writers. And some of them offer a truly frightening picture [...]
Ok, false alarm, it’s not quite breaking news. People have known this for years. But I think, following today’s little outburst in The Independent, it’s worth reiterating. Julie Burchill is an idiot. Quite why a paper which is, by and large, aimed at intelligent, liberal minded progressives, chooses to print the journalistic equivalent of an [...]
Purdah is the Persian word for curtain. In the far-flung places of the world, it refers to the practice of concealing women from men through segregation or dress. Here in Britain, it is the somewhat curious term applied to the pre-election period in which the government is, more or less, prevented from making major policy [...]
Guest post by Richard Symons We came to “The Fear Factory” via an unusual but (as we discovered) incredibly astute request. The Nationwide Foundation’s steering committee brief was simple enough, “give us a tool to change minds” – a regrettably necessary first step in making the treatment of young offenders something you could convince the [...]
When I received my review copy of Spirit Level Film’s latest documentary, The Fear Factory, through my letterbox a few days ago, I had little idea what to expect. A few seconds in, as the ominous music begins to play and the image of a foetus looms into view accompanied by the voiceover telling us [...]
