Tag: Politics

  • DOWN TO EARTH: BRUNO LATOUR AND THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL DELIRIUM

    French philosopher Bruno Latour has died. I was introduced to his work as an undergraduate at Brunel University by his collaborator Steve Woolgar in the late 1980s, and his writings have continued to play an important part in the way I think about the world. Here’s a piece I wrote last year, having read his […]

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  • Pandemic and the Limits of Entrepreneurial Government

    Once again the government has used a high-profile announcement of an apparent technological breakthrough (the “game-changer” this time is the promise of ninety-minute diagnostic tests) to try to distract from their general failure to effectively address the pandemic (and, in this particular case, to grab front pages from the embarrassing story of a former minister […]

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  • IT IS STILL BOLLOCKS TO BREXIT – LEFT OR RIGHT

    The way in which Corbyn and his mates have been using the issue of Brexit as a weapon in their desperate attempts to retain control of the Labour Party is, I think, revealing. The most common criticism of the Labour Party they inherited was that it wasn’t ideologically pure enough. That it was too concerned […]

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  • REVIEW: CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BY THOMAS PIKETTY

    I was just reminded of this after a random comment on Twitter (hi @redrichie). I wrote this review back in 2014 for Arcfinity. The row over inequality hasn’t moved on much and, reading it back, I think some of the things I said are still relevant – we are certainly no closer to a political […]

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  • SOME REASONS TO BE SCEPTICAL OF THE HYPE ABOUT CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA (PART ONE)

    Like lots of people, I’ve been thinking about the current row about Cambridge Analytica and their supposed influencing of the US election and Brexit and possibly other elections around the world. I understand people’s anger and I understand the degree of fear that comes with the idea that we (or, more usually, some other group: […]

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  • IT’S ALL JUST A CASE OF (LABOUR’S) HISTORY REPEATING

      This is why Miliband prized unity in 2010. Hoped to break post-defeat cycle. Split merely deferred. — George Eaton (@georgeeaton) July 31, 2016 George Eaton’s Tweets (above) made me think about the pattern of Labour history and how the current mess is part of a cycle that goes right back to the very first […]

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  • THE POINTLESSNESS OF COMRADE CORBYN

    So, today, Jeremy Corbyn launched his leadership campaign. It was the opportunity for him to make the case that he was the genuine radical that his supporters have been claiming. To put his case that “Corbynism” was the revolutionary (perhaps that’s too charged a word) change that some see as inevitable if he is re-elected. […]

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  • WHO WILL REPRESENT THE FORTY-EIGHT PERCENT?

    THERE IS LIKELY TO BE A GENERAL ELECTION BEFORE THE TURN OF THE YEAR AND IT IS ALREADY CLEAR THAT THE THREE MOST POPULAR POLITICAL PARTIES – LABOUR, TORY AND UKIP – WILL BE PUTTING FORWARD POLICIES THAT ACCEPT THE UK’S DEPARTURE FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION. WHO WILL REPRESENT THE FORTY-EIGHT PER CENT WHO VOTED […]

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  • CONSERVATIVE’S WALLS CANNOT SAVE US

    One of the defining features of modern conservative politics is a fixation with the building of walls. In America some of these walls are real – the notion of “securing” the US southern border with a physical wall, no matter how medieval that sounds, is now mainstream politics. It’s not just the wild rantings of […]

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  • LABOUR’S BETRAYAL OF SYRIA

    War has always been a topic that has caused the Labour Party problems and it seems increasingly possible that whether or not Britain should bomb Syria has the potential to create deep, and possibly irreparable, splits in the modern party. There’s a particular oddness in this situation, since Britain’s capacity to have any significant influence […]

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