By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent New research has revealed the top 50 signs that you're a competitive mum. Queueing up to get the front seats for the school play, always winning the ‘mums race’ on sports day and producing ‘Bake Off’ standard cakes for the fair are just some of...
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Who could you ask the same question six times to and not get an answer? I thought I would give it a try. I asked the bus driver which was the next stop, he told me on the first go, so I got on and...
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Today’s PMQs began with a quick guide to consumerism, Susan Elan Jones, Lab, asked why Sunday trading hours shouldn’t be extended: “What about families?” she asked despairingly. The PM robustly replied: “This is about families.” Eh, no Dave, this is about consumer capitalism. He nearly...
By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent Historians have revealed what London would have looked like today had Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder plot not been thwarted by the spies of the past. The images show how intelligence and espionage during the Tudor and Stuart times shaped Britain’s culture, religion and even architecture. Events...
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor I guess if you failed to get on X factor, Britain’s Got Talent and that naked TV game show with Keith Chegwin, you can always e-mail Jeremy Corbyn for your fifteen minutes of fame, and hope he asks your question out. The lady who was...
By Abeer Sharma “Dum de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum dum…” Oh yes, a new series of the BBC’s The Apprentice is back on our screens this week, launching with a double-bill. Expect haplessness, back-stabbing and stomach-churning desperation galore as 18 candidates battle for...
By Professor Mary Mellor The Labour U-turn to vote against Osborne’s fiscal charter ‘trap’ is welcome, but it cannot stop there – Labour needs to open up a real debate about public access to money in a modern economy. Osborne’s aim to enshrine in law that States must not run...
By Callum Towler At rallies, protests, even among friends, I hear two phrases frequently levelled at Conservatives: the ‘Evil Tories!’ or those ‘Tory Scum!’ Such mud-slinging has long been attached to a faction of left-wing activism bitterly opposed to Conservatism. Unbridled from the restraints of coalition, we now see our...
By Dr Katy Shaw @DrKatyShaw The financial world has long been a source of fascination for writers, and this intensified in the wake of the credit crunch. In my new monograph Crunch lit I argue that following the financial crisis, literature was mobilised as an effective means of cultural resistance—a site...