Guest Blog: The third of May will be a decisive day

April 6, 2012 by Leave a comment

Image

Image © Matt Hobbs

Tom Vine

The week did not begin well for the mayoral contest. After a debate on radio channel LBC, Boris distastefully called Ken Livingstone a “f***ing liar” after Livingstone accused him of using similar tax arrangements as have been causing much controversy over Livingstone’s candidacy. Livingstone was quoted afterwards saying he and Boris are in “exactly the same situation” concerning their earnings.

Yet, what is frightening about this whole situation is not the fact that these men are choosing to pay corporation tax on their earnings over income tax but that our current Mayor of London feels he has the right to call Livingstone, let alone anyone, a “f***ing liar.” What’s also coincidentally convenient for Boris is the way in which the contest has been transformed into criticising Livingstone over taxation on his earnings. Admittedly, I felt as though Livingstone had, in a way, betrayed the left. But as I began to doubt the security of my Ken Livingstone vote, I realised how puny this issue is compared to what really matters for Londoners: housing, crime levels and the amount it costs you to get to school or work each day.

These are the very issues the mayoral candidates (of which a full list can be found here) have been debating for the past few weeks in an attempt to win our votes. These are issues which effect us Londoners directly. Knowledge of Ken and Boris’ tax arrangements isn’t going to reduce my tube or bus fares, so why should I care?

Read more of this post

Filed under Conservatives, Democracy, Green, Labour, Lib Dems, Localism, Media, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This Game Really Does Have New Rules

March 11, 2012 by Leave a comment

John Paul Shammas 

Image © Mamamia

In the voice-over introducing his video “Kony 2012,” narrator Jason Russell tells a worldwide audience, “The game has new rules”, and he’s right.

There was a brief lull around campuses and student bars this week when students had momentarily halted from watching a baby monkey ride a pig on Youtube. Instead, their internet activities had moved on to something else, and the conversation had moved towards the infrequently visited topic of African warlords. The Youtube phenomenon Kony 2012 is a short campaign film by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous. Not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent that through social media, we can mobilise our youth to influence our political discourse in order to bring bad guys around the world to justice. Sounds great, right?

The truth is that social media is an incredible mechanism for connecting ideas, including bad ones. Helping people is a complex business, something this viral video doesn’t communicate. Consequently, campaigns such as this one have a distorting impact which encourages the conversation (and the money) in the wrong direction. For example, 69% of the money received by donations and Kony 2012 related purchases aren’t going towards helping anyone. Instead, it is going towards Invisible Children promotion campaigns which ultimately perpetuate a self-promoting cycle for the company to go and make more viral hits without investing the bulk of their profits into local communities and aid. This fact is made even more repulsive when the content of the video is a journey with a self-absorbed narrator who unashamedly indulges in hero-worship of himself, attempting to seem paternalistic, but coming across as simply neo-colonial and deceptively populist.

George Clooney features in the video briefly, calling for warlords and tyrants to be made as famous as he is. The sentiment here is basically calling for the many atrocities and injustices in the world to get increasing levels of exposure within the public domain, which is something we can all get on board with. The issue however, which is inherent throughout this Kony 2012 debacle is the misdirection of our discourse and the misdirection of our culture. We should be addressing why we value George Clooney as so essential and immediate to our consciousness, not calling on the media to equate his exposure with human rights violations – that’s a consumer choice issue of which the buck firmly stops with us, the consumer. Read more of this post

Filed under Africa, America, Children and families, Culture, Democracy, Foreign policy, Media Tagged with , , ,

Ups and downs in job numbers in the northeast

March 8, 2012 by Leave a comment

Georgia Lewis

Image © Colin

People who probably had no idea the Geneva Motor Show was even happening this week were made well aware of it after a surprise announcement by Nissan. A new compact car is to be manufactured at Nissan’s Sunderland plant, a rare beacon of economic hope and employment in the beleaguered northeast of England.

Sky News was first to jump on the bandwagon with the declaration that it was great news for the job market and they fitted in a spot of Cameron cheerleading because this happened partly because of £9.3 million in support from the government. Never mind that it mostly happened because of £125 million in investment from Nissan – through the Sky News prism, this was irrefutable proof that the Con-Dems are serious about job creation.

First, the good news – this means about 600 new jobs at the plant and when you add in jobs created along the supply chain, up to 2,000 new jobs. Not only are there new positions being created but, for the current employees at the plant, they can enjoy a greater sense of job security. This is great news indeed and will make for many happy households in the northeast.

But let’s not get too excited about an economic revival of the northeast just yet. Last November, multinational mineral resource processing company Rio Tinto announced the closure of an aluminium smelter in Lynemouth, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Blaming carbon taxes for the closure, this has resulted in the loss of 515 jobs. Last May, Indian company Tata Steel cut 1,500 jobs in nearby Teesside and Scunthorpe, a bit further south, again citing the costs involved in reducing emissions. So that’s 2,515 people looking for work many miles north of Westminster.

Read more of this post

Filed under Conservatives, Economy, Media Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Guest Blog: Teach PPE in schools

March 3, 2012 by Leave a comment

Nikhil Venkatesh 

What do Danny Alexander, Ed Balls, David Cameron, Yvette Cooper, William Hauge, both Milibands, Aung San Suu Kyi, Bill Clinton, Toby Young, Stephen Hester and Rupert Murdoch have in common? Two things: they are all very important people, with more than their fair share of influence over the rest of us; and they all studied* for a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE).
The subjects that make up the PPE course are vital for an understanding of the world (and of how to change it), and should be available to all. Our country’s ruling class, as this BBC article notes, is made up of PPE graduates. However, in Britain at least, these subjects are restricted to a select few who have the means, fortune and intelligence to get onto the famous course at Oxford*. My view is that Britain would have a far more open, informed and democratic society if PPE subjects were taught in state schools.

Philosophy (for a far better article on the teaching of philosophy click here)

Quoted by Julian Baggini in The Philosophers’ Magazine, senior fellow in the public understanding of philosophy, Angela Hobbs, made the case for teaching children philosophy. She says a knowledge of philosophy creates ‘a bright, inquisitive teenager’ – and surely having an ability to ask and understand questions such as ‘What is good?’ ‘What is happiness?’ and ‘What exists?’ makes for a more rounded person. The philosophical method, ‘the ability to construct and analyse an argument,’ Hobbs says, is something that ‘you’re going to need whatever you go on to do after you leave school.’
If philosophy teaches one thing, it’s to question accepted truths. A country of philosophy scholars would never let a politician get away with saying that he has all the answers; it would always ask ‘How do you know? What do you mean?’. A philosopher can see through a media image, can analyse and criticise any argument, and can understand the plight of others. A philosopher wouldn’t be surprised that our ruling class of PPE graduates has conspired to stop us learning these skills. Read more of this post

Filed under Children and families, Conservatives, Democracy, Economy, Education, Labour, Lib Dems, Media, Parties Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

You Can’t Evict an Idea

March 1, 2012 by Leave a comment

John Paul Shammas

For having those who stand at great personal inconvenience and discomfort to rally against social and economic inequality, the world is a much better place. Sceptics, branching from the tabloid press or any of the mainstream right-wing entourage (the Murdoch press, The Telegraph et al) have characterised Occupy, a legitimate and peaceful expression of moral outrage, as ‘bohemian’, indulging in ‘class warfare’ and even seeping as low as to accuse the movement of anti-Semitism.

On the 27th of February, Saint Pauls corroborated with the police in evicting the Occupy camp from its premises. Apparently, standing up for social injustice and those less fortunate (you know, Jesus stuff) had become too much of a nuisance for the church. Egalitarianism is clearly of no concern to God; the repulsive wealth of the Vatican serves to vindicate that assertion as being comprehensively non-controversial. Meanwhile, we make sure our children are working hard in school so they can increase their chances of working for free at Poundland and Tesco, and if they dare indulge in such snobbery as to aspire to get a job their hard work actually deserves, people like Cristina Odone will go on Question Time and label you an “articulate monster”. Read more of this post

Filed under Conservatives, Democracy, Economy, Liberty, Media, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

DeJa vu all over again

February 24, 2012 by Leave a comment

Dominic Turner

Image © Arash Razzagh Karimi

You may be forgiven for thinking you’ve seen this all before. Increasingly ‘crippling’ sanctions.  Whispers of ever-growing weapons capabilities. The pounding beats of the same war drum, of distant threats, from a savage alien culture. We were here almost 10 years ago. This week Israeli ‘intelligence’ asserted the claim that Iran may be capable, in some indeterminate time, to strike US cities with missiles. You may remember similar claims in 2002 about the Iraqi regime being capable of striking the West within 45 minutes. Those claims, like the ones of today, formed part of the propaganda package sold to British public as the reason to illegally invade Iraq, a war that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi’s.

If you search through the pages of British and American media outlets you will see the liberal use of the phrase “strategic strikes” on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The same was said before Afghanistan was bombed into the Stone Age, causing the deaths of around 30,000 civilians. The truth is, Iran’s nuclear facilities are scattered around the country, meaning any war or planned attack would inevitably cause immeasurable casualties to a civilian population that is more than twice the size of Afghanistan’s. 

In July of 2007 41% of Americans still believed the bald faced lie that Saddam Hussein was personally involved with the attacks of September the 11th, a central facet in selling the war to the American people, three years after it was proved false. Today, Sky News is sowing the same seeds of destruction, proclaiming that Iran and Al Qaeda are plotting a joint attack in Europe. The fact that Al Qaeda are Sunni whilst the Iranian leadership is Shia nation, and are sworn enemies, is an inconvenient fact that cannot get in the way of the war mongering of the Murdoch owned media. The success of the propaganda mill can be demonstrated by the fact that 71% percent of Americans believe Iran possess a nuclear weapon when even US defence secretary Leon Panetta has admitted that Iran has not yet decided whether to build nuclear weapons. Any strike on Iran would not be an act of self defence but an act of war.

Read more of this post

Filed under America, Foreign policy, Media, Middle East Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Mooney, the Mail, and Me

February 6, 2012 by 1 Comment

Scott Hill

Image © Byzantine K

As hard as it may be to envisage, it is possible that some of you may have missed my appearance on BBC Radio Four’s Broadcasting House programme over the weekend. Thanks to the wonders of BBC iPlayer you can catch up here[1]. Typically, I forgot half of what I wanted to say and failed, in the small time allotted to the very broad topic of the Daily Mail’s impact on society, to produce a wholly satisfactory, coherent argument. Nevertheless, it was an interesting debate, but one I feel needs fleshing out further. But first, let us look at what was revealed during the 8 minute ding-dong.

My sparring partner throughout the debate was the Mail’s very own Bel Mooney. Immediately, Bel was forced to concede that she regularly receives criticism for daring to write for the infamous paper. She even acknowledged that the Mail “gets things wrong and often prints things I don’t agree with”. However, she failed to maintain sanity. She went on to describe the Mail as a “paper of absolute genius” and, when I dared to raise an example of the paper’s contradictory views on feminism, she declared: “Can we be more serious than that?” Coming from a Daily Mail defender, surely that must be the irony of all ironies.

Aside from the point I raised with regards to the double standard over feminism[2], I also managed to fit in a quote from a BNP activist (“The rhetoric of the Express and the Mail could come from one of our own newsletters[3]”), stated that my parents merely buy the Mail for its supposedly superior crossword, challenged the paper’s definition of what it means to be British (something that went ignored by both host and opponent) and asserted that Mr Dacre’s new corrections box on page two is simply not enough to convince me that the paper’s standards will significantly rise.

Read more of this post

Filed under Media Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The UK Government should thank the European Court of Human Rights

January 31, 2012 by Leave a comment

Frederick Cowell

Image © ex_libris_gul

Following the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) ruling about Abu Qatada’s extradition the anti-Human Rights Act (HRA) brigade have been out in force. In his recent speech about the ECHR David Cameron claimed that the ECHR was in danger of undermining public support for civil liberties. This claim was accurate in large part because the same right wing newspapers that support him have been busy whipping themselves up into a self-righteous rage about the EHRA.

The UK government has received good results from the ECHR recently (not that you would know it) as they ruled that the system of whole life tariffs was not a form of torture. Forty six prisoners in the UK are currently serving whole life sentences and following an application from Jeremy Bamber, Peter Moore and Douglas Vinter (who are between them guilty of murdering nearly a dozen murders) the ECHR ruled that it was not “inhuman and degrading” for them to die in jail. The ECHR also approved the UK’s policy of deportation with assurances (assuming reliable guarantees against torture are given) in spite of the policy being strongly criticised by Amnesty International.  Needless to say these cases are nowhere to be found in the anti-HRA pieces from Michael Burleigh in the Daily Mail, Philip Johnston in the Daily Telegraph and Douglas Murray in the Daily Express. Instead the ECHR is presented as a judicial factory producing ‘outrages’ to be inflicted on the UK, even though the government wins the vast majority of applications to the court. Additionally these critics do not mention that Abu Qatada has not been convicted, let alone faced a criminal trial, in the UK. Whilst he is definitely unpleasant and has been involved with terrorist organisations, the fact that neither the Crown Prosecution Service nor the Director of Public Prosecution has been able to bring him to trial over a ten year period, despite numerous changes in the law, is illustrative of how the problem is much wider than ‘activist judges’ at the ECHR.

Read more of this post

Filed under Conservatives, Democracy, Europe, Liberty, Media Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marx out of 10 for Page 3’s apologists?

January 31, 2012 by 3 Comments

Sam Fowles

Image © OBJECT

The Page 3 debate shows how the left, as well as the right, must stop clinging to old ideologies and address the problems of today.

“It was a breath of fresh air”, writes Ellie Mae O’Haggen in the New Statesman, “to see four articulate women at the Leveson inquiry spelling out the sexism most feminists knew was there all along… without being ridiculed or interrupted.” How short the sudden silence.

Oddly, it was from writers on the left that one heard the loudest rebuttal of the submission from Object and “Turn Your Back on Page 3”.  Roy Greenslade was quick to question the veracity of their evidence in the Evening Standard, while Brendan O’Neill launched a telling broadside against the “bevy of feminists” and their “shrill chorus” on this website.

This issue presents a problem for many on the left. For once we’re facing a major societal issue that wasn’t caused by faceless bankers or privileged Tories. The 99% are just as culpable. We have, by the implicit consent of the consumer, created the gutter press. Tabloids print what sells and we’re all buying.

Read more of this post

Filed under Culture, Media Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The political discourse of America in recent history has been driven by a narrative – a durable myth

January 30, 2012 by 2 Comments

 John Shammas

Image © Michael Noirot

Reagan’s voice commanded a receptive audience during a period of economic stagnation with his talk of values, responsibilities and duty prevailing over a worn and laboured liberal rhetoric which lost itself in almost-exclusively discussing rights and entitlement schemes. Even today, Reagan’s critics fall so easily into playing the role of an apologist for the out-of-touch, tax-and-spend stereotype – a stereotype of which the conservative media sell to their demographic at a rate similar to that with which Apple shift iPhones. Meanwhile, the key contemporary GOP field today – the Bachmans, the Palins and the Gingrichs of this world do not have to function as stand-alone politicians: instead their key occupation is to merely serve as apparatus to the echo-chamber of the Reagan myth.

Reaganism constitutes a politics of post-modern structuralism which has such obvious and explicit endurance today. It is driven by a mythology that highlights the fact that the key battleground issues of the 1960’s have never been fully resolved. The disputes, shifts and changes of the era cannot be solely defined and dictated by political or partisan preference. Crucially, the durability of the Reagan myth feasts of the evanescence of a counterculture informed by individual choices, moral standing and personal identity which has dissipated into consumerism, materialism and ideological separation.

And the emphasis here must ultimately arrive at that last point: ideological separation. So often, in his election campaign in 2008 and even in last week’s State of the Union address, Obama idealistically speaks of bi-partisanship, cooperation and ideological synthesis. However, he has been wholesomely defeated in his campaign. The essential legacy that Reaganism has engrained upon our politics is displayed in how viscerally and unapologetically we define ourselves in ideological terms. Partisanship is not an issue. Partisanship is the issue.  Read more of this post

Filed under America, Culture, Democracy, Media, Parties, Tax and spend Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,300 other followers