Dreadful article by Rafael Behr in the Grauniad today. You get the gist from its headline: Jihadism a symptom of western policy? That’s mangled history. In a piece whose thrust is to rubbish Jeremy Corbyn – in this instance for … Read More »
Like countless others on Saturday morning I padded bleary-eyed into the kitchen to make coffee and, while I waited, switch on the radio. You know something big has happened by the muted tones of those on the scene, and by … Read More »
Cleaner Katy Rojas from Ecuador worked until very recently for Interserve, which has the Foreign & Commonwealth Office cleaning contract. She began in 2010 on £6 per hour but this year had her first rise, to £7.05. Now she’s laid … Read More »
A fairly decent response from Obama here on the dreadful news from Oregon. In thinking about weapons of death, let’s for a moment set aside the USA’s trillions of dollars spent on “keeping Americans safe” – a project whose side … Read More »
Today at the Labour Conference: (a) Corbyn would never press the button, (b) Burnham, Eagles et al fear Russian aggression (though not NATO’s recklessly menacing eastward expansion) and (c) the press is having a field day. Why, oh why muddy the waters of … Read More »
We have dual natures, you and I. On the one hand we are supremely social animals. Unlike pike or tigers or black widow spiders, who associate only to mate or commit internecine violence, we need one another. Ill equipped for … Read More »
I had a mildly sticky phone convo yesterday, apropos my last post, Corbyn: the first five days, with someone I’ve known a very long time. An intelligent man, highly so in fact, he had two beefs. One (tacitly informed by … Read More »
The hypocrisy is no less breathtaking for being predictable. A billionaire press that cheers on the collateral slaughter of countless innocents in the middle east now excoriates the new shadow chancellor for having suggested we drop our robotically conditioned condemnation … Read More »
After decades of a Labour Party that subordinates human need to “gaining the nation’s trust” – read: “gaining a mild toning down of Murdoch and Rothermere vitriol so we can get our responsible arses back into number ten“ – on stewardship … Read More »
It’s a great story. Mild mannered, law-abiding lady in her forties – black lady in her forties – is too tired, after yet another hard shift as seamstress, to do as she’d done a hundred times before and give up … Read More »