I joined some pro-Trump and QAnon/Save the Children groups to research a blog on the coming American Election/Coup D’etat. Frankly what I found was too strange to get my head round, a combination of authoritarianism, conspiracy theories, and new age weirdness. I expected to find fanaticism but all I found was heart breaking loneliness and… Read More Nightmare Trump Art
The last few months have seen a massive surge in the use of the identity verification service run by Gov.uk. For those lucky enough not to have to use this system in order to use key Government services you have to set up an identity verification account. Over the last few months usage of the… Read More ID cards | Privatising personal data
With all of the mess around Covid and exam results it is easy to forgot that we have a much bigger challenge ahead Brexit In all of the flurry of nonsense I wanted to highlight the problem of licensing British lorries to work in the EU after the 31st December. The process of authorising goods… Read More Farage Garage and Cabotage
All of the focus of the last week in politics has been the storm around A level results. This is without doubt one of the most shambolic situations any Government has found itself in, one which has no easy way out. The only positive thing I can take from it is that the 6th formers… Read More Kick Start | A kick in the teeth for young people
Hegel remarks…. that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Karl Marx 18th Brumaire. I get reminded of this quote on a daily basis when people make comparisons between our current age and the 1930s, in particular… Read More The politics of loneliness: Are the 1930s really repeating themselves?
Last month I wrote about the potential for Coronavirus to take hold in rural America. Since then the situation has worsened rapidly, and we are way beyond what I considered a worse case scenario. Without a big change of plan they will at least double their number of deaths before the election. Trebling the number… Read More Updates | Stories I previously covered
The Government has made a massive mess of it’s response to Coronavirus. An unmitigated disaster. Boris Johnson and his team prioritised managing the news cycle over managing the virus; too many eye catching announcements without any actual thought about whether they would work. With so many gaffes it’s hard to pick a low point, but… Read More Fragile Working | Why the public sector coped with Covid better than the private sector
Over the last week there has been on line anger over a vote in the House of Commons to stop the NHS being part of a future UK/US trade deal. The vote itself was pretty much meaningless political posturing. The response on social media was full of plucky memes fighting NHS privatisation, complete with made… Read More Another NHS Re-organisation | More plucky memes!