Can Labour and the left think beyond just spending more money?
contribution by Sahil Dutta
A few weeks back Hopi Sen articulated a key problem facing the Left.
What is a left-wing politics about if not spending more money?
It’s striking that even at #occupyLSX, in an environment daring to think radically different, much of the debate centres on ways to collect more tax and the places to spend it.
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The origins of this Greek Tragedy
contribution by Alex Andreou
Some months ago I tried to explain that the crisis in Greece concerned the entire globe directly and that what was happening to my country was nothing short of an economic coup d’état.
Naturally, I was accused of doom-mongering and over-dramatising. It pains me to have been proven absolutely right on both points.
If we are to learn lessons from the events of the last three years, it is vital to challenge dominant and convenient narratives on the issue. They range from, at worst, malicious propaganda and, at best, distracting fairy-tales.
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Standing one inch tall
contribution by Nathaniel Mathews
Leila is from abroad. She has a baby in a buggy and a cute little girl who asks me politely for a pen so she can draw. The children are well dressed and impeccably behaved.
Although she has been in this country long enough that one child is in school, her immigration case has been refused, and she and her family were evicted from their hostel by Social Services yesterday.
I have to tell her we’ve reached the end of the line.
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Is the UK’s AAA rating now also under threat? Looks it
Just how safe is the UK’s AAA rating?
I ask because if I worked for a Ratings Agency I would currently be going through the OBR’s new forecasts and asking myself again and again, how long can I continue to give this country the top rating?
Consider the facts. The OBR has rather helpfully (in Box 4.4) provided some international comparisons of the UK’s debt and deficit position.
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Jeremy Clarkson: the right, the left and deathwish jokes
Three quarters of Telegraph readers back Jeremy Clarkson in the row over his ‘execute strikers’ outburst. The Top Gear presenter’s remarks should not have been taken seriously, because he was only joking, they insist.
As Freud explained over a hundred years ago, tendentious jokes are a mask for socially unacceptable feelings, not least violent hostility. There is probably a level at which Britain’s most famous petrolhead meant exactly what he said.
How close are Cameron, Jeremy Clarkson and Rebekah Brooks really?
The controversy around Jeremy Clarkson has brought up a long-known reference in media circles: that he is part of the ‘Chipping Norton Set’.
What does that mean, you may ask, and who else is part of it? And why was he at No. 10 Downing St just days ago?
A Liberal Conspiracy source has, for the first time in this way, collated some information on where Jeremy Clarkson, Rebekah Brooks, David Cameron and Matthew Freud (head of the powerful PR firm, married to lizabeth Murdoch) roughly live. They are all key players in the Chipping Norton Set.
I say roughly because while I have been sent locations gleaned though legitimate means (Electoral Register and company accounts) – I won’t reveal them in detail.
Below is the area around Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.
Rebekah Brooks lives at A
David Cameron’s massive house is at B
Matthew Freud is believed to live at C
Jeremy Clarkson lives at D
They aren’t just close through work – they actually live five minutes away from each other.
Has Osborne also effectively killed the Libdems?
I was never a convert to the theory that by going into an alliance with the Conservatives, the Libdems had committed suicide as an independent political party.
They had a plausible get-out clause, which could have recouped them around 65% – 85% of vote losses as long as everything went to plan.
But it hasn’t. Osborne’s budget on Tuesday killed the original plan and now there’s a real chance the Libdems will be wiped out at the next election. The question is – how long will it take for the party to realise that?
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Pressure mounts on Indian Olympics boycott
Pressure is being mounted on the Olympics committee today to reconsider accepting controversial sponsorship money as Indian athletes threaten a boycott of the games.
Ken Livingstone and others will today launch a public petition of thousands of signatures from concerned citizens, Olympians and celebrity endorsers at the Olympic site in Stratford.
Today marks the 27th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 – which killed thousands immediately and affects hundreds of thousands more even to this day.
Union Carbide, the company responsible for the disaster, now owned by Dow Chemical, has not accepted full responsibility for the present-day environmental pollution.
After it emerged that Dow was sponsoring a small part of the Olympics, Indian athletes threatened a full boycott.
Dow Chemical is paying for a temporary decorative fabric wrap for the Stadium, costing around £7m.
Key Labour figures are today launching a campaign to urge the London 2012 Olympic organisers (LOCOG) to drop their sponsorship deal with Dow Chemical Company.
Labour Friends of India are planning to hold a series of press events and meetings with legislators across the world.
The Labour MP Barry Gardiner – chair of Labour Friends of India – will meet politicians from the G20 nations in Durban on Saturday to raise “concerns about Dow’s failure to remediate the site at Bhopal and to take proper environmental and social corporate responsibility”.
Watch: activists unmask undercover cop at #oLSX
Activists from #occupyLSX unmasked and surrounded an undercover police officer who had infiltrated their protest on Wednesday, a video reveals today.
The hoodie-wearing police officer admits to a crowd that he was an undercover office.
The incident took place when activists from #occupyLSX were trying to protest at the offices of the mining company Xstrata
When unmasked, the man admits: “Yeah, I’m a Met Police officer, yeah.”
One protester says in response: “He has no uniform and no [badge] number… we have no way of identifying him, so how are we supposed to complain about him.”
Activists said they unmasked at least seven undercover officers that day.
We need to re-assess our approach to Europe
In the past you were either a Europhile and constantly uncritical of the European institutions- or a Europhobe and unable to acknowledge any virtues in the European project.
So perhaps the crisis we now face will enable us to adopt a more balanced attitude in re-assessing the European project.
We need to this from at least three perspectives; the policies, the EU institutions and the relation with our citizens and national institutions.
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» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
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