If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
A wise man once said that it's none of our business what other people think of us. I can't recall his name or even his face, but I do remember that this gem came from the mouth of a celebrity during a television interview.
In opposition, George Osborne repeatedly stressed he would be a pro-savings chancellor. At this very difficult time for savers, he needs to live up to his promises and resist the temptation to view pensions as an easy, short-term hit.
As Gordon Brown never tired of claiming, this financial crisis began in the US housing market. So-called NINJAs loans were lent to US borrowers with no income, no job and no assets and formed the crux of a sub-prime crisis that floored the world economy.
For 14 years, comedian Janey Godley ran a bar in the Calton area of Glasgow's East End. These were the Trainspotting years and, at the time, the Cal...
Some 18 months after the general election, the British remain as sceptical about immigration and politicians' ability to manage it as they were in the dying days of Gordon Brown's government.
Whilst it is undeniable that the Tories still enjoy a disturbing level of support, Labour need to ram these messages down the throats of anyone willing to listen.
If, when they rescued bankrupt institutions from the consequences of their own folly in 2007-09, governments had insisted on some sort of conditionality, (for example, they had insisted that "too big to fail" institutions were broken up, that bonuses be capped and that banks started behaving in vaguely responsible ways), this need not have happened.
What, can we hope for from the Chancellor today? At the very least, it seems likely that he will underline the importance of getting business lending flowing. But there's some hope that we won't have to wait until November's statement for a more definitive move on bank lending. Britain's businesses are watching.
The ideological direction of the Labour Party has never been more contested. To their credit Blue Labour were the first group of thinkers to present a fairly coherent route away from the failed New Labour project.
What is it that first leaps into your psyche and thought process when you hear the word 'Scottish'?
Mention "YouTube" and "British government" and "failure" to most people interested in online politics or comms and the chances are they will think of Gordon Brown and that YouTube film with the unusual smiles.
"How were we so blind?", Britain asks itself, "the signs must have been there all along", before remembering that, "they seemed so happy together." Well, Britain, I got news for you. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling aren't the first 'happy' couple to have found themselves at one another's throats.
Poor Mr. Brown. Our former Prime Minister is subject to another onslaught from someone who used to work with him, and who is now, it appears, prepared to tell it like it was. Who cannot help but sympathise?
Yesterday the Guardian reported that proposed new rules for party funding could result in the Labour Party being "ruined". But this is only a metaphorical straw landing on a camel with an already decidedly poorly back.
The media still seems baffled that prim and proper England would be almost brought to its knees by what the London Daily Mail newspaper referred to as "nihilistic and feral teenagers" rioters.
