“Reassurance Labour” and post-Blair social democracy
Globally, the centre-left is enduring a period of public weariness and dissatisfaction. In Australia, a relatively unpopular government battles on against a red-blooded Opposition Leader, with the spectre of a leadership context lingering unerringly in the background. Between Kevin and [...]
David Cameron’s socialism by some other name
Whither Keynes? For the past six to twelve months, the big philosophical imponderable doing the rounds in British political life has been the extent to which the government should intervene in the market in order to stimulate the national economy. [...]
Occupy London: radical or conservative?
For almost two months now, the Occupy London camp has remained firmly entrenched outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, having been banned from the private grounds of Paternoster Square, where the London Stock Exchange is located. After winning its philosophical “huddled masses” [...]
Ten things evil capitalists “really think”: a response
Daniel Hannan, a Conservative MEP for the south of England and regular columnist for the UK’s Daily Telegraph, has written a column in which he purports to tell the Occupy protestors “ten things that evil capitalists really think”. It’s been [...]
‘Rational’ econocrats v. “hand waving Mediterraneans”
There was an extraordinary article (unfortunately not online) in the weekend Financial Review discussing the latest EU developments – the departure of George Papandreou and Silvio Berlusconi as Prime Ministers of Greece and Italy and their replacement by econocrats acceptable [...]
Democracy v. EU Plutocracy: Links post
A number of important posts worth noting about the decision of Greek Prime Minister Georges Papandreou to submit the EU’s latest “rescue”/austerity package to a referendum: Yves Smith: …no one anticipated that a long suffering debtor would revolt, which is [...]
Ed Miliband’s centre-left: not drowning, waving
Party conference season here in the United Kingdom has come and gone during the last few weeks; the Liberal Democrats kicked off in Birmingham, followed by Labour in Liverpool and the Conservatives in Manchester. There was much grumbling in the [...]
London burning IV: Tory authoritarianism triumphant
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech to the House of Commons in the aftermath of the English riots set the tone for a bizarre crackdown: Responsibility for crime always lies with the criminal. But crime has a context. And we [...]
A crisis of political economy
President Barack Obama recently told members of Congress and the public: If we don’t come to an agreement, we could lose our country’s triple-A credit rating, not because we didn’t have the capacity to pay our bills – we do [...]
London Burning III: more sociology of civil disorder
The last thread has grown long and slow to load. Here’s two kick-starters for further discussion – Zygmunt Bauman on the UK Riots and this photo of Londoners coordinating to clean up their neighbourhoods after calm was restored.
London burning II: The sociology of civil disorder
It’s time for another thread on the English riots, since the last one is now rather long.
To update on some of the analysis, the prediction that a number of the usual suspects would turn the events into a partisan football has unsurprisingly been borne out. So let’s ignore that, and have a look at what we know about what’s happened and what it means.
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