The Left-wing response to the financial crisis
Some bloggers have been asking what the left wing response to the current banking crisis ought to be. Here’s what I predict it will be.
The crisis will be slotted effortlessly into the existing left-wing narrative about the evils of capitalism, neoliberalism, and the ‘myth of free markets’. The bailouts will be commonly referred to as hand-outs to the greedy bankers who created all the trouble in the first place [1], and the headline figures (say the $85bn to AIG) will be spoken of as if this is money taken from taxpayers and given to banks/insurers [2]. We will see lots of talk of parasitic financiers who produce nothing and indulge in nothing but speculation. continue reading… »
Soap misrepresents Australian Law
I have a guilty pleasure- an addiction to Australian soaps. I know that this blog is usually much too serious a place to discuss such meaningless subjects, but this is a very serious post, I promise.
On Thursday’s episode of one of my favourite Australian soaps, Out of The Blue, screened on BBC2, a happily pregnant couple at what they thought was a routine scan were told that their baby had such a serious genetic abnormality that there was no choice but to terminate the pregnancy. My instant reaction was a cry of “Surely that isn’t legal!”
Personally, I am strongly against any abortion. However, being disabled, I am particularly against the abortion of any pregnancy that, if continued, would lead to the birth of a disabled child. continue reading… »
Must be time of the month to oust Gordon!
Via Jess McCabe at The F-Word, those intrepid terriers at The Telegraph delve into the real reasons for rebellion against Gordon Brown and discover that it’s just a cabal led by a bunch of women who are emotional, irrational, and probably having their periods.
Here’s their expert analysis of Siobhain McDonagh:
She sounded like a woman facing an emotional crisis, not a government minister in the midst of knifing the Prime Minister.
Classy. Just in case you hadn’t noticed, conservatives are the new progressives….
Top Stories and Blog Review – 13th Sept
Elsewhere
Whip sacked for urging leadership contest
Warning: 30 airlines will go bust this year
McCain Grilled On “The View”
Hurricane Ike could be worse than Katrina for US
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Aaron Heath
Paul Theroux/CiF – How exactly does shooting a moose with a big-ass gun make you a rugged Republican megastar?
Political Betting – Was Biden a bad choice, and did Obama ‘force’ McCain to gamble on Palin?
Scribo Ergo Sum – Our Douglas reviews Sarah Palin’s first network TV performance. Verdict? Scary.
Hassan Akram – The recent histories of Chile and Britain share some common characteristics, so what can the British left learn from their Chilean comrades?
Paul Linford – Brown’s latest throw of the dice may be his last, but it could also be the play Labour supporters have been waiting for.
peezedtee – Should we change the National Anthem?
The enemies of reason – Play the Littlejohn drinking game.
Picture perfect
The Times today. Now they’re also split on Stem Cell Research.
Sarah Palin, the Feminist
Loath as I am to bring up Sarah Palin’s feminist credentials again so soon after the last episode, I have to report that she is such a strong feminist and so determined to deal with the issues affecting women, that if they have been raped she thinks it’s a good idea to charge them $1200 to have the evidence collected.
Lest we think that she is merely doing this out of fiscal concern for the state, lets not forget that this is the same Sarah Palin who claims travel and meal expenses for herself and her family to stay at home…
Now, I know that men get raped too. I don’t know if THEY get charged $1200 for evidence collection or not. What I do know is that this is something which is punishing the victims of a crime to push the stats down (which poor person is going to report a rape if they know it will cost them $1200?) and those victims are disproportionately women.
Whatever your definition of feminism, surely it can’t be argued that THIS fits it?
Palin, abortion and the gender agenda
We cannot avoid being moved by what’s happening in the States. The mood is infectious. Hope, its audacity, and its enemies. And one of those enemies is Sarah Palin, the gun-toting ‘feminist for life’ newly announced as John McCain’s running-mate.
Let me make one thing absolutely and abundantly and categorically clear. There is no such thing as a ‘pro-life’ feminist. You cannot be a feminist and oppose a woman’s right to choose. Let me repeat that for the brainwashed and hard of hearing:
You cannot be a feminist and oppose a woman’s right to choose.
continue reading… »
The ‘Gordon Brown is insane’ meme
As its a slow news day, I might as well highlight this blog post at the Guido Fawkes blog. Paul Staines asks: ‘Is Brown bonkers?’, adding later on that:
It is low politics to hurl cheap abuse at opponents, but this is not borne of malice towards Brown, Guido feels like the boy who pointed at the naked emperor and said what everyone was too embarrassed to say.
Erm, yeah right. He’s as concerned about Brown’s sanity as I am about trainspotting. What Staines is doing, and what the political right excels at, is starting and constantly promoting malicious narratives. Their hope is that it becomes a talking point for the mainstream media and that is how he becomes framed. The Republicans in the United States have been great at this for decades.
Is it despicable? Of course. Inevitable in our political and media environment? Yes. The question is, how do political opponents respond? Obama tried to remain above the fray but is finding that negative campaigning works, whether or not people publicly claim to dislike it.
Update: Further comments by David O’Keefe and septicisle.
Further update: Really amusing to see Paul Staines is now dreaming up a conspiracy involving CCHQ and Andy Coulson when they weren’t even mentioned in the initial post. How bizarre. Justin quite rightly asks, is Guido Bonkers? James Graham too. Cain: its called “concern trolling“. Heh.
Jamie K asks: Is Lady Thatcher syphilitic? Tim responds. Heh.
What do you mean by ‘anti-Americanism’?
You know times are tough for a global superpower when someone devotes a large amount of time and money producing a blog in solidarity with you.
America in the World is a new project from Conservative Home’s Tim Montgomerie which aims to act as a bulwark against anti-Americanism by dispelling myths, extolling the country’s virtues and arguing that a world without America as a dominant force is not a notion anyone should want to entertain.
If done right, the site serves a decent enough purpose, and the content certainly seems well-researched and attractively designed. But the sticking point was always going to be how they define anti-Americanism, and in this respect they threaten to alienate a significant number of people.
continue reading… »
Johann Hari and the Seven Seals of Dacre
Nick Cohen’s decline from interesting leftie columnist to right-wing hack has been well chronicled over here. One amusing marker of this was Watching how he broken one by one the ‘Seven Seals of Dacre’.
The idea behind the Seals of Dacre are that every time you adopt a bizarre and counterfactual view which is also believed by Melanie Phillips, a seal breaks open, and when all seven are broken, the Vaults open and an army of ghouls rush out and drag you off to write a column in the Daily Mail (or in Nick’s case the Evening Standard).
I haven’t been tracking Johann Hari’s progress in this way until recently, but I reckon he has broken at least two Seals in recent weeks.
continue reading… »
Re-thinking Obama (pt1): Why Democrats matter
Here goes the latest attack line against Barack Obama on various right-wing blogs.
George Bush’s ratings are the lowest ever for any president in history and the people are sick of this Republican administration. McCain is old and frequently makes mistakes even when talking about foreign policy. The economy is in doldrums. Meanwhile, Democrat voter registration is way higher than Republican and they much more energised about getting rid of the Republicans this year. Barack Obama can attract huge crowds in the USA and abroad. McCain has silly little townhall meetings.
So why is Obama only about 4% ahead in the national polls? There must be something wrong with him…
It has been repeated all over the American blogs and more recently made its way to Republican cheerleaders here. There are some obvious rebuttals.
continue reading… »
We need a new paper for London
The Evening Standard has something close to a monopolistic position on London news. My objections are not because it is right-wing, obsessed with Ken or a bit tabloid.
Rather, it is that they are unchallenged in their position. My objection to the newspaper market in London is that it leaves great swathes of GLA and borough politics untouched.
Despite its attempts to move upmarket, ES’s news coverage is pretty poor. It doesn’t cover borough politics and only lightly covers the Mayor and GLA. There is room and need for competition for the broader (rather than just middle market tabloid) London news market. But the Evening Standard has singularly failed to capitalise on its online activities.
I believe that better news coverage and debate about London – effectively the fifth home nation – would be a good thing. The question is how.
continue reading… »
Blog Nation and future of politics, online
I was reading about the US event Netroots Nation over the weekend and realised – I hadn’t properly written about Liberal Conspiracy’s own Blog Nation event a few months ago. There was plenty of commentary across other blogs but it didn’t really reflect what I had in mine when I organised it.
Blogging about blogging again? You betcha. I’ve been discussing the future of political blogging at various events, and I’ve been invited to participate at the bloggers fringe at both the Libdem and Green party conferences in coming weeks. Oh and there’s the infamous David Lammy incident I want to go over again.
continue reading… »
A-Z of right-wing online commenting
A short alphabetical guide for anyone thinking of posting a comment on the Mail/BBC Have Your Say messageboards.
ALCOHOL – benign, harmless substance when consumed by anyone over 45 which is also toxic and dangerous drug when administered to YOUNG PEOPLE or FERAL YOUTH. Should be taxed when drunk by YOUNG PEOPLE but not by others, who are of course responsible and never do anything wrong.
AND GUESS WHO’S PAYING?!??!! – usefull catch-all phrase to describe anything in which the government/state is involved. Should be used at the end of any post as punctuation or a final flourish to a well-argued and wittily brilliant excoriation of NULAB’s injustices and crimes.
ARRESTED – means someone did it.
BBC, THE – Pinko commie bastard scumbags who love liberals and want our children to be gay. Bonus points for saying “I BET YOU WON’T PUBLISH THIS, COMMUNIST BBC!” whenever you submit anything to the HYS messageboard.
BINGE BRITAIN – the sudden liking for alcohol which has happened since 1997. No-one underage ever drank anything before then, but now all of a sudden everyone is drinking, from the age of four upwards, then having a fight afterwards. Anticipated by Hogarth in his famous “Gin Lane under NuLab”.
continue reading… »
This week’s think-tank roundup
A weekly roundup of publications, reports, events & articles from the leading UK think tanks.
Welcome to this week’s Think-tank Roundup – everything from ‘new money’ and supply-side oil crunches to the call for better teachers and yes, Michael Gove’s ‘Nuts’ (there was more to his speech than that storm suggested).
Things seem to be quiet on the events front but I guess that’s a function of both parliamentary recess and the impending party conference season (of which more soon). Must read piece this week is probably Gove’s speech if only because it deserves a better airing than it got because of that unfortunate quote about lads mags – details below.
As ever please use the comments for anything I’ve missed…
continue reading… »
Whitewashing Beyonce
The image on the left shows the singer Beyonce Knowles as she normally appears in public. The image on the right is from a L’Oréal ad campaign. Spot the difference.
Now, the company insists they didn’t digitally alter Ms Knowles complexion in order to make her look more white, and while this stretches the limits of credibility I suppose it’s possible that they achieved it through the use of make-up and clever lighting. Either way, the image on the right is vastly different to what Ms Knowles actually looks like; she appears far more light-skinned and the only way they could’ve done this is through some sort of manipulation.
Since the ‘natural’ Beyonce is no slouch in the looks department, it’s natural to suspect sinister intent.
continue reading… »
The “smoking gun” Iraqi memo and Con Coughlin
The American journalist and writer Ron Suskind, formerly at the Wall Street Journal, has revelations in his latest book that the White House ordered the CIA in the middle of 2003 to forge a letter from Iraq’s former intelligence chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush, which was subsequently used as the smoking gun to prove links between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaida.
The letter claimed that Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the September the 11th attackers, had trained in Baghdad at the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal’s camp, and that the Iraqi regime was deeply involved in the 9/11 plot.
The letter was the crudest of forgeries and has subsequently been exposed as such. It is however the first time that allegations have been made that the forging of the letter was authorised at the very highest levels of both the US government and the CIA itself. Suskind minces no words and suggests that is impeachment material.
All sides, it must be said, have denied it, and there are reasons to believe, as suggested in the Salon review of Suskind’s book, that this might be one of those stories that seem too good to be true because they are.
But here’s another twist to the tale. Rather than going to an American source with the letter, perhaps considering the fallout that was yet to come over the leaking of dubious intelligence to Judith Miller of the New York Times and others, the memo was given to a British journalist, the Telegraph’s Con Coughlin.
continue reading… »
Veronica’s crony
We were assuredly told by someone who writes for the Evening Standard that the prospect of Ken Livingstone running again in 2012 is hilarious, the best thing that could possibly happen to Mayor Johnson four years from now.
So why can’t “London’s Quality Newspaper” stop fighting the 2008 election? Haven’t they noticed that their boy won? Or are they, perhaps, secretly worried that Livingstone might yet present a threat to him?
I ask this only because they’ve seen fit to make the redundancy payments of Livingstone’s former advisers their front page story. Er, scoop. Needless to say Veronica’s Cat – who only ever deals in facts, you understand – manages to describe these people as “fanatically loyal” and “current or former senior members of Trotskyite group Socialist Action”, just in case there was any doubt in our minds that the severance sums are undeserved.
continue reading… »
Yet more silly BBC bashing
Never missing an opportunity to attack the BBC, the Sun is fuming over the £400,000 fine imposed by Ofcom for various fixed phone-in competitions which no one had a chance of winning:
ONCE again, the BBC is fined for conning viewers. Ofcom’s ruling should shame everyone in the Beeb’s management. In a private company, heads would roll. Instantly.
If the leader writer had so much as bothered to bring themselves up to speed on what shows were fined and for what, they would have noted that Ric Blaxill, the 6Music head of programming resigned last year after it became apparent that he had been complicit in one of the deceptions that took place on Russell Brand’s show. The most high profile casualty of last year’s series of “fakery” scandals was Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC1, who resigned after the “Crowngate” hoo-hah.
continue reading… »
Understanding British law, with Melanie Phillips
You’ll all know by now that policies are complicated things. They use Big Words and Complicated Jargon. They come in large PDFs, and not only do you have to read the whole thing, but you’ll need access to other reading materials to make sure you understand context, history and competing points of view.
Phew, that’s enough to work anyone into a sweat – thank God no one actually writes about policy anymore!
Well, one brave woman still does. Ever the wonk, Melanie Phillips has forensically studied the details of the proposed changes in murder law and, for her policy-averse readers, managed to summarise it in just 34 words.
To quote The Knowing One, the proposals:
as far as I can see, will mean that if a woman kills her husband she will get away with it whereas if a man kills his wife he will be convicted of murder.
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
|
26 Comments 66 Comments 20 Comments 12 Comments 10 Comments 18 Comments 4 Comments 25 Comments 49 Comments 31 Comments |
|
LATEST COMMENTS » sally posted on Complete tits » Joanne Dunn posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » Lovely Lynnette Peck posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » Nick posted on Why don't MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours? » Bob B posted on Complete tits » Nick posted on Complete tits » Mike Killingworth posted on Complete tits » Mr S. Pill posted on Complete tits » Nick Cohen is a Tory posted on Complete tits » Nick Cohen is a Tory posted on Complete tits » Matt Munro posted on Why I'm defending Ed Balls over immigration » Kate Belgrave posted on Complete tits » Kate Belgrave posted on Complete tits » Nick Cohen is a Tory posted on Obama is right to slam BP - and why capitalists should too » Thomas Hobbes posted on The Daily Mail and "Bongo bongoland" |
