A progressive analysis of politics and the arts.
by Toby Gill
‘The most dangerous time for a bad government is when it begins to reform itself.’ – Alexis de Toqueville.
Give people an inch, and they will take a mile. This is what de Toqueville hinted at in his Ancien Regime et la Revolution, his celebrated account of the French Revolution. It was just as Louis XVI’s regime began to reform that the masses could take no more. Just as the promise of real change was made, the guillotine fell.Continue Reading
by Chris Jarvis
Last Thursday, failed London Mayoral candidate and prominent racist Zac Goldsmith became the first incumbent MP since 1986 to lose their seat in a by-election, having triggered the vote in the constituency by resigning in protest at the decision of the Government led by his own party to commit to building a third runway at Heathrow airport. Overturning a 23,000 majority, the Liberal Democrats’ Sarah Olney won the seat of Richmond Park and will now become the ninth MP for the party.
The constituency is a strange one. Mostly highly affluent and nestled in the blur between London and Surrey, its electorate voted overwhelmingly to continue Britain’s membership of the European Union. The seat has swung between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in multiple elections. Election turnout is frequently substantially higher than average. Falling under the flightpath of the airport, it’s one of the few constituencies where a single local issue dominates much of the political debate.Continue Reading
By Robyn Banks
I’m in the break room at work choking on my out of date sandwich. I’ve just been informed by two of my colleagues- good, down to earth working class people who probably think I bang on about my degree too much- that Boris Johnson is a “lad”, and I have no idea what to say. But none of us have any money, I want to shout. And he wants us to have less! Before I can respond, the conversation moves on to laughing about his hair, which is much more tolerable. Later, as I complain about Trumps victory, I am told that all I want is for “everyone to sit in a circle and hold hands”.
The victory of Donald Trump to become the 45th President of the United States has shocked and dumbfounded many. What does it say about the state of politics when the first female major party presidential candidate – who was, by far, the most technically qualified – is defeated by a man who has never held any political office? Continue Reading
As the dust continues to settle on soon to be post-EU Britain, I’ve been thinking a lot about the place I call home. Norwich has been my city for quarter of a century now, and as my Granny says of such milestones, “You get less time for murder.” Norwich is infamously disconnected from the world, with visiting football fans often singing “there’s only one road in Norfolk” to Guantanamera at Carrow Road – and as much as it pains me to admit it, the isolation is a real problem.
The fact we’re so cut off from outsiders rubs off on our city’s attitudes towards culture in particular – with a quintessentially Little England village-mentality that boasts of being an UNESCO City of Literature in a town perpetually threatening its libraries with cuts, and renders us fiercely defensive of our ‘doing different’ status-quo, who year on year wheel out the same tired Lord Mayor’s procession, Castle firework display, and cover-band music festival, while remaining collectively suspicious, and sometimes even hostile to new ideas.
A 2014 article in the Wall Street Journal about human organs for sale showed a glimpse into yet another aspect of human nature, particularly of the wealthy and elite, that demonstrates our willingness to exploit just about anything possible. It talks about how in the West many people need, yet die, as a result of waiting for organ transplants, especially kidneys and livers. Somehow, this leads to the justifying of creating a global organ marketplace with imagined safeguards in place that would prevent exploitation. Never does it seem to occur to the authors that this entire suggestion is exploitative as they end the article with the belief that, despite initial horror at the idea, eventually ‘the sale of organs would grow to be accepted’.
After Alan Bennett gave his sermon entitled ‘Fair Play’ at King’s College Cambridge, some of the conversations in my school have turned to the issue of private schools, and why we are attending one. The phrase that I have heard more than once, is a line from Tom Lehrer’s song, ‘Selling Out’:
I’ve always found ideals,
Don’t take the place of meals.
Or, put simply, there’s no point in abolishing private schools if it isn’t going to help on anything other than an ideological level. My objection is simple: it would help. Continue Reading
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