Mail’s Corbyn exposé is pathetic
Today, the Mail on Sunday devoted more than a dozen pages to a new ‘exposé’ of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, in a feature which declares him “unfit for office”, most of it culled...
Category: Europe
The EU is not slavery
So, poorer Brexiters voted to be worse off? There’s nothing wrong in that by Gary Younge (the Guardian, Friday) This piece makes the case that working-class Leave voters were voted by ‘values’ rather than...
Brexit is a matter of life or death
After my last-but-one post about the behaviour of Corbyn supporters on social media, a long-standing friend cut contact with me as I explained in my previous entry, and I had another exchange with the...
The Corbynites and the ‘Spinsites’
Earlier today I had a conversation with a friend on Twitter who said that some people believe everything the Tory press spews out about the Labour party and its leadership. Both of us have...
Remainers, the “elite” and Corbyn
I’m a remainer. So why do I feel more and more sympathy for leave voters? by Joseph Harker (the Guardian) This piece, published today on the Guardian’s website (probably for the Observer tomorrow), reiterates...
Foreigners, foreigners and more foreigners
One of my biggest complaints about Remainers is that, when discussing the issue of the end of free movement between Britain and the EU, instead of emphasising the benefits to Britain and British people...
Let’s not be intimidated by Brexiteer thugs
Yesterday we saw a group of thugs in yellow vests, clearly acting in imitation of the fuel protesters in France, intimidate the political writer Owen Jones, the journalist Dawn Foster (who wrote about the...
London is not above the UK’s problems
So, last night London had it’s traditional New Year’s Eve fireworks at the South Bank and it featured the London Eye lit up in a way that vaguely resembled the European Flag (which actually...
Yes, Brexit does have to come first
The past few weeks, I have noticed that there are two bitterly opposed camps when it comes to the importance of Brexit or other issues, particularly as regards the Labour party. One side seeks...
Who’s really the “elite” here?
There was an anecdote I forgot to insert into my previous entry about the stereotype of the “liberal elite”. Back in the early 2000s I was working as a van driver for a major...
Nothing ‘Priti’ about Patel’s ignorance
In an interview for today’s Times, the Brexiteer Tory MP for Witham in Essex said that a government report, leaked to the Times, which said that the economic impact of a no-deal Brexit could...
Against the “liberal elite” media trope
A favourite claim of the alt-right, populist right, whatever you want to call them, is that their liberal opponents (whether they be in the Labour party, the Lib Dems themselves, the pro-European wing of...
Why the Daily Mail’s “volunteer army” should be resisted
Today, the Daily Mail launched a campaign to recruit a “volunteer army” to “help” the NHS starting next Spring, in conjunction with a “new social movement called Helpforce”. The roles that volunteers are expected...
So, you don’t want to call “Tommy Robinson” a thug…
This morning the Today programme on Radio 4 covered the story of Gerard Batten, the new leader of UKIP, hiring Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the former leader of the English Defence League, anti-Muslim agitator and self-styled...
Brexit, ignorance and lies
Last week, a draft agreement for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU) was published; it was some 500 pages long and, as could have been predicted, really pleased nobody. It prompted two Cabinet...
‘Normalisation’ is real and has consequences
‘Normalisation’ is the idea that if the media gives too much exposure to extreme views or those without any basis in fact or science, they become the political mainstream and will come to be...
Truckers blocking London? Get real.
This morning I saw a longish interview on the BBC Breakfast show with some guy called Richard Tice, who was identified only as a spokesman for “Leave Means Leave”. I didn’t hear most of...
What really lies behind Trump, Brexit and “national populism”?
During the post Iraq War days (when Iraq was effectively if not in name under occupation), the pro-war blogger Norman Geras ran an article on what it called the Single Transferable Article About Iraq...
Why Muslims should protest public insults to the Prophet
Geert Wilders (or Geert Hitlers as I call him), a far-right Dutch opposition politician, has cancelled an event he had been planning (or claimed to have been planning) this coming November, a contest for...
Rex Bob Lowenstein would make a bad politician
As I mentioned two posts back about the niqaab controversy, Boris Johnson found an ally in the former (and possibly future) UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who made a comment on BBC London radio to...