Browsed by
Author: TSE

Weeping angels. On moving statues

Weeping angels. On moving statues

Comments 0 Comment

“I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:And on the pedestal these words appear:‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’Nothing…

Read More Read More

Patched with virtue. Britain’s historical legacy and how black lives matter

Patched with virtue. Britain’s historical legacy and how black lives matter

Comments 0 Comment

Hong Kong has been much in the news recently, with the Chinese government looking to unilaterally set aside part of the “two systems” approach that it agreed to when Britain ceded it in 1997 by imposing new national security laws on it.  British public opinion is rightly deeply concerned.  The British government has offered Hong Kongers with a British National Overseas passport the right to live and work in the UK.  This is an admirable and principled stance by the…

Read More Read More

Sewage and sewerage. New media and news

Sewage and sewerage. New media and news

Comments 0 Comment

There’s always a tweet. Donald Trump had long baited the public through his twitter account, but this time he went too far.  In relation to the George Floyd case, he inveighed against rioters, with the stirring words: “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts”.   These words would have been inflammatory without context, but they in fact echo the boast of a southern police chief against the civil rights movement. This was too much for…

Read More Read More

A nice way to spend your Sunday afternoon, watching This House

A nice way to spend your Sunday afternoon, watching This House

Comments 0 Comment

Like Mike Smithson I love the play This House, I saw This House at the theatre back in 2012 and when it was repeated in the cinemas in 2013, so I utterly delighted a wider audience will be able to see this. I was born in the late 70s but I’ve always been fascinated by these crucial votes in Parliament, particularly the 1979 vote of no confidence, something which is a pivot moment in the history of this country. It’s…

Read More Read More

We need to talk about Donald Trump’s Twitter account

We need to talk about Donald Trump’s Twitter account

Comments 0 Comment

Donald Trump and his Twitter account seems to be the embodiment of David Cameron’s maxim about Twitter, but this week Trump seems to have really caught the attention of Twitter with some pretty interesting actions regarding his tweets. So onto the betting angle of this story. Ladbrokes have a market up on Trump’s Twitter account to be deactivated or suspended before the end of June 2020 at 10/1. Usually a profitable route is not to get involved in betting markets…

Read More Read More

Motes and beams. Leading a response to a pandemic without moral authority

Motes and beams. Leading a response to a pandemic without moral authority

Comments 0 Comment

So now we know: as in Pirates of the Caribbean, the rules of the C aren’t so much rules, they’re more what you’d call guidelines.  Robert Jenrick has confirmed that the public could always exercise “a degree of personal judgement”.   This will come as a considerable surprise to the 27million people who listened to Boris Johnson on 23 March: “give the British people a very simple instruction. You must stay at home, because the critical thing we must do to stop the disease spreading…

Read More Read More

Will Labour lead in a nationwide YouGov poll in 2020?

Will Labour lead in a nationwide YouGov poll in 2020?

Comments 0 Comment

This market by Ladbrokes on Labour leading in a UK wide Westminster voting intention poll is an intriguing one, the most recent YouGov poll had the Conservatives 15% ahead, during the first phase of the pandemic that lead peaked at 24%, prior to the pandemic that lead was around the early 20s, so it is fair to say the Conservatives lead with YouGov has been consistently high. So what chance of Labour leading in a YouGov poll this year? The…

Read More Read More

There’s been definite damage to Boris Johnson in the polls following Dominic’s Cummings and Goings

There’s been definite damage to Boris Johnson in the polls following Dominic’s Cummings and Goings

Comments 0 Comment

The last time I saw a Prime Minister needlessly trash their reputation like this was in the autumn of 2007 when Gordon Brown denied he had been planning on holding a snap election. Even one of his MPs wrote ‘Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority’, such a denial of reality damaged Brown’s ratings and they never really recovered which saw Labour lose power and they haven’t been in power since. These rapid falls…

Read More Read More