Birthday Boy
This small boy is 80
Awkward Questions
Marxist interventions in cultural politics and political culture, intended to shift perspectives on vexing topics and needle established ways of thinking, which means anything that takes my fancy.
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Latest posts
Resignation and politics
The naughty boy comes to Westminster In the optimistic scenario, Burnham’s sunny personality infects the country and all turns out well, the economy turns around and the threat of Reform recedes. But personality and friendly speech, however welcome, only get you so far, and his carefully managed campaign at Makerfield nevertheless exposed a politician no less vacillating and slippery than we’ve…
Questions about the Prime Minister
and the way BBC Television sees it: There are two political comedy shows on BBC that I watch regularly, Have I Got News For You, whose irreverence makes me laugh, and Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, which makes me weep, because of course it’s not meant to be funny. Except last Sunday (17 May), when one of the trio of panelists was the writer Will Self, who has a cynical and sardonic sense of humour.…
Questions about Love and Aggression
or, Who do we think we are? I don’t mean personally but as a species. For some, the answers come from religion, others will look to philosophy or anthropology or the neurosciences, and now along comes artificial intelligence to unsettle our hubris. We think of homo sapiens as a species different from all other animals, but what about the similarities?
Questions about economics that economists can’t answer
or, What can and cannot be predicted. The general prospects are clear. Trumpanyahoo’s illegitimate war against Iran has thrown the global economy into disarray. No-one seriously doubts the prospect of global economic crisis, but no-one can say how deep it will go, not only because that depends on how long it goes on, but also because economic forecasting is inherently unreliable. The question is…
How many worlds are there?
Geopolitics as ideology How many worlds are there? Why do we talk of the Global North and the Global South? What happened to the terminology of First, Second and Third World? Why is it that what was known as the First World is now called the Global North, which is not geographically accurate, and the Third World is now the Global South? What happened to the Second World? And why are countries that…
Why is a third of the food produced around the world wasted?
If the market is as efficient as its defenders make it out to be, how is this possible?
Questions about Israel
Is Israel deluded? Is it aware how much anger has been generated around the world by the genocide in Gaza? Who does it benefit?
Why is social care failing and what of the promised reform of the NHS?
And how are these two issues connected? A few days ago, Casey reported on her progress. The system she is investigating, she said, ‘doesn’t really exist’, it’s held together by ‘add-ons and work arounds, sticking plasters and glue’.
How do we speak of the unspeakable?
How could it have come to this? And what shall we call it? It’s more than a bad dream. A malevolent parody of Alice in Wonderland? A replay of Kafka for the digital age? A surrealist legalistic drama? A badly-plotted disaster movie? A fiendish trumped-up reality show?