Riot shields ready to dodge the flying quiches. Set tasers to stun those unemployed analysts. Truncheon the bourgeois materialists. They no longer matter. We’ve bled them dry. By John J Kelly. Recently, The Guardian reported police warnings of a ‘summer of hate.’ Sources of Intelligence (in short supply in the police) ‘indicate’ that middle class [...]
Monthly Archives: February 2009
Is Sir Jams Crosby is about to leap aboard another gravy train?
February 23, 2009 – 7:28 pm
Just when you thought it was safe to get back on the buses, one of the undead emerges to cause a train wreck. File this one under ‘you couldn’t make it up’ . . . . . By John J Kelly As we know from our unhealthy obsession with The Godfather, when Roman generals failed their [...]
Unless we kill them now, Zombie banks will roam the earth, eating our future and boring us witless
February 22, 2009 – 3:26 pm
The financial system as a whole is rotten. Predicated on the now-doghoused dogma that markets know best and light-touch regulation is all that’s needed to produce the best of all possible worlds, the regulatory structure failed to prevent banks, insurers and investment funds from acting recklessly. During the good times, investors as well as [...]
British Rail Fares 50% higher than Europe – why oh why etc.
February 19, 2009 – 7:04 pm
There should be a sign upon disembarking at London St Pancras International train terminal: “Welcome to Britain, where everything’s a lot dearer and a little bit rubbish.” By John J Kelly A report by Passenger Focus has told us something we already know: British rail passengers, especially commuters, pay 50% more for our generally uncomfortable [...]
Liberty in Britain is suffering death by a hundred cuts
February 19, 2009 – 11:24 am
I still cannot quite believe this is happening to my country. It feels like a bad dream. But it is happening, and we must stop it. Now. By Timothy Garton Ash For thirty years I have been travelling to unfree places, from East Germany to Burma, and writing about them in the belief that I was [...]
Recession or depression? Don't ask Gordon Brown, he's in denial.
February 12, 2009 – 9:46 pm
A recession is defined as two successive quarters of negative GDP; a depression is defined as a slide in peak-to-trough of real GDP of 10% or a decline lasting more than three years. According to Mervyn King, Head of the Bank of England, the UK ‘recession’ is much deeper than anticipated. GDP might drop by [...]
Some good news at last – News Corp lost £4.4 billion last quarter
February 9, 2009 – 11:09 am
Cheer up – the recession (depression, according to Gordon Brown’s most recent Freudian slip of the tongue) has some green shoots. You wouldn’t have noticed unless you were looking hard – the company in question is hellbent on global media domination and now owns the Dow Jones Wall Street Journal- but on Thursday, 5 February [...]
Oil on troubled waters
February 5, 2009 – 8:25 pm
We need to double food production, but we’re running out of oil and water. Obviously the market will sort this one out… By Daniel Taghioff, India When the Food and Agricultural Organisation says that another 40 million were pushed into hunger in 2008, what images spring into your mind? Is it possible to imagine that [...]
If you don't like what you've seen of Davos Man, wait till you see Nationalist Man get to work.
February 5, 2009 – 10:22 am
By Timothy Garton Ash. Davos Man, ‘the most highly evolved mammal on the planet’, should say ’sorry’ for the economic mess he’s got us into, according to a recent piece by British Conservative MP and journalist, Michael Gove. Conservative party leader, David Cameron. Cameron was a Davos Man last year too. Clearly Mr Gove is calling on his [...]