The limits of market rationality
On one hand, this whole global financial crisis (is that what we’re having again?) thing is horrendously complex. On the other, it’s quite simple. Let’s focus on the simple. The meltdown that followed the end of the credit and housing [...]
Peter Mandelson’s The Third Man
Peter Mandelson‘s memoir, The Third Man, was timed for maximum impact, being released just after the British election this year. Mandelson’s musings were condemned as unhelpful by the full gamut of UK Labour figures (including Tony Blair, who was perhaps [...]
Tony Blair: a “tinkling symbol”
I don’t know if anyone else remembers Tony Blair intoning verses from 1 Corinthians at Princess Diana’s funeral. I watched it. I wondered at the time if there was something in the nature of Englishness that made it seem apt [...]
“Let Julia Be Julia”
Julia Gillard has just been on ABC News 24, saying she’s tearing up the script, and will henceforth campaign in a manner that eschews scripted lines. This is the “Let Julia Be Julia” strategy, which will be familiar to the [...]
Democratise or die: the future of the ALP
One of the ironies of the British election, as I noted at the time, was that a campaign and a result which seemed to portend an end to politics as usual brought forth a reactionary result – the coalescence of [...]
Giddens' requiem for New Labour
One of New Labour’s intellectual architects (or court theorists), Anthony Giddens, looks back on the New Labour ‘project’. His article in the New Statesman is a disappointing one, which doesn’t actually show much reflection or much awareness of the dissonances [...]
Education, elitism and meritocracy
The Economist speculated this week that the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government in the UK might come to be seen as “government by the southern rich for the southern rich”. Skepticlawyer has an interesting post at her eponymous blog, riffing off [...]
The UK election: there was a verdict
Clearly, the results of the UK election are inconclusive – Labour doing much better than expected, and the Liberal Democrats worse, with the Tories falling short of a majority. Similarly, the regional pattern is quite varied – with Labour holding [...]
Gordon Brown keeps the faith
LBJ used to tell a story about an old Southern Senator who, depressed by the repetitive politics of race baiting and populism, yearns to return to his state one last time to give a “good old Democratic speech”. Today, Gordon [...]
Left reasons to oppose the net filter #nocleanfeed
Peter Black from Electronic Frontiers Australia asked me to contribute to a series of posts the EFA is publishing to draw attention to its current fundraising campaign. Please consider donating to the EFA in order to fund its continued work [...]
Teacher bashing round #176838
Sheesh, election years can be depressing some times. If it’s not having the green lycra clad form of Action Man Abbott on the tv screen for 9 days in a row, or craven policy reversals on brown people in boats, [...]
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