“…the worst of all worlds; heavily taxed workers receiving poor services in a country running a €23 billion surplus funded by companies it doesn’t control.”
Brilliant. Answers so many questions about Ireland’s present baffling condition!
When will the left engage with the science of ecological breakdown and take it seriously? These thinkers were rich in ideas for a twentieth century society that had yet to acknowledge the cascading collapse of the natural foundations of all economic activity. Wilful denial now? It’s not progressive.
My column on an intensifying kind of street chaos that we cannot name - something I've found hard to write about and put a finger on but have been meaning to cover for a while:
"When I started writing about the climate crisis in the 1980s I was in my twenties, and I didn’t fully comprehend that there could be a force on this planet so steeped in greed & power that it would sacrifice the earth & its inhabitants for its own narrow interests. But there is, and it’s Big Oil."
because CD players, walkmans, and VCRs usually fucking worked and did precisely what was asked of them without relogging in and syncing and re-entering passwords and getting confirmation codes and doing 2FA with out TV and phone and clicking a fake "remember me" box that's fucking why
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa...?
The UK (and to some extent EU) lost a decade of state functionality due the Brexit shitshow. And then losing precious time and money to Putin, and now Trump. Enraging!
And a well-thumbed copy of my all-time favourite picaresque blockbuster!
My absolute bête noire. Designed purely to be anti-social.
‘Output scepticism’ is an excellent description of that skill.
Interesting thread.
If AI removes the grunt work for junior lawyers (eg, due diligence for corporate lawyers and discovery for litigators) then it will affect social mobility, as well as other things.
It is how you learn to be a lawyer in those areas.
Brutal. Depressingly, fair.
Exhibit no. 450,284 in my case that these things should be encased in lead and dropped into the Mariana Trench.
Great article in which Paul Drechsler observes that history, like the decision on #Brexit tells us that staying silent carries risk. So the question he asks is, if we don’t accept risk as part of our candour in public debate, what are the future consequences? 👇
substack.com/@voclbrief/n...
The McSweeney strategy - which was always meant to be judged by its ability to maintain public support - is a complete and utter failure, remarkably so, and that fact should be drilled into Labour's consciousness as a warning to the future.
It's not as high profile as all the other failings of the last government, but the total collapse of the court system thanks to Chris Grayling is one of the most damning.
On 25 April, the choir of St Mary Magdalen Oxford (including me) will be singing and livestreaming the complete choral music of Thomas Tallis in 12 hours, culminating in his stunning, 40-part motet "Spem in Alium".
Here's a little taster: "If Ye Love Me", plus a rare window into the Mags wardrobe.
All her own work! She absolutely loves being part of SMM, on every level.
Daughter no. 1!
Tee hee. Think I recognise the sop with glasses...😉
In the 1930s, Oswald Mosley claimed to be a patriot, while his British Union of Fascists was secretly funded by the Italian government. We are just beginning to grasp how much of the far right in the UK today has been funded by Viktor Orbán and Russian oil money.
Their "patriotism" is always a con.
What’s frustrating is that the government knows what needs to be done but they don’t want to have an honest conversation with the public
There are no significant political party differences in the UK on public resource allocation. All believe that pensioners and the NHS are the overwhelming priority, and spending on anything else must fit in around those, to be generated by tackling "waste" or "growth".
Hungarians showing how to win big in an unfair election: organize AND protest AND vote AND demand profound change.
Many things to say about the demise of Orbanism but the scale of his defeat is impressive. This is surely also a rejection of Trump & Vance. The threatened new era of official US interference in European domestic politics has got off to a satisfyingly calamitous start
As little as I already thought of the man I'm in awe of what he's accomplished in 15 short months. Historic run. Basically threw away all his fire extinguishers and told every firefighter in town to eat shit, and then set his house on fire. We need a separate Mount Rushmore for morons
Cartoon by Gábor Pápai, a well-known Hungarian political cartoonist.
Never forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Le Duc Tho as well: Vietnam's negotiator. He refused it as there was no peace. When I interviewed him in Hanoi in 1980, he dismissed Kissinger as "a liar".
Zelensky suggests Britain needs to rejoin the EU if Trump pulls out of Nato.
