Opinion

There's an episode of Futurama called 'Proposition Infinity'. It parodies the debates about gay and lesbian marriage in America by presenting a contentious referendum on the rights of robots to marry humans. Obviously, the idea of walking down the aisle with artificial intelligence isn't on the public agenda. But we are not so far off from another piece of lurid science fiction: robot sex slaves. The plans are already in place. Big robotics and electronics companies are investing serious money...

By Steve Banks The Daily Mail is underplaying the support it gave to Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists in the early 1930s. In a recent smear on his son Max Mosley, one of paper’s heavy-hitters Richard Pendlebury wrote: "For a brief period some of the mainstream press — this paper and the Daily Mirror included — praised the BUF's supposedly ‘conservative’ agenda. "That support soon evaporated as violence and an intolerance that was very evidently...

Boris Johnson has today revealed that Britain will continue to supply arms to Saudi Arabia, using the rationale that if we don't supply them then other countries will. Indeed, other countries would "happily supply arms" to a country that is allegedly involved in war crimes in the Middle East, according to the Foreign Secretary, which is all the more reason to keep shipping. But this "eye for an eye, tooth for tooth" mentality is worryingly juvenile given what's on the table. The Saudi-led military coalition...

Once there was a parent. You know the sort, always out for special treatment for their child, complaining if someone else gets to be Mary at Christmas, or if another child is praised for working hard and being kind and helpful, as opposed to their spoilt, idle, over-entitled progeny who expects a round of applause for turning up. This parent would make demands to the Head that the school should buy this or that, and was told the school had...

An unemployed man with severe learning difficulties who relies on foodbanks and spends days without electricity because of cuts to his benefits has been revealed as the real-life Daniel Blake following the film's release at cinemas. Sean Green, 49, says he has to rely on hot meals cooked by his neighbour in order to survive after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cut his Jobseeker's Allowance. Friends have said he is being treated unfairly by the DWP because his learning difficulties...

The craft beer industry is full of gimmicks - said the trans-gender beer to the portable brewpub - but this one ain’t fooling anyone. Months after being bought by SABMiller and then passed from AB InBev to Asahi, Meantime Brewery has opened Britain’s smallest craft beer bar in Greenwich to give the impression that they're still craft at heart, paying homage to their locality and creating the illusion that they're a personal brand. A funny stance from a brand that produces...

The truism ‘prevention is better than cure’ has become a lost relic in austerity-hit Britain. The cost of applying a plaster to crisis situations is more appealing in its simplicity than precluding societal ills, and thus we waste billions of pounds funding late institutional responses such as hospitals, prisons and care homes. As a social business set up as a deterrence to homelessness The Big Issue has been in a prime position to observe the shift in mentality from prevention...

By Marcus Hendriks The referendum on 23rd June was only the third in the history of the United Kingdom. In other words, it was only the third time that true, direct democracy was witnessed. With precedent set by a nation-wide vote on membership of the European Economic Community in 1975, it was correct that the decision 41 years later should also be made by the people, rather than just the 1,400 members of the Houses of Commons and Lords. But the...

Tired of spending time with family and friends? Fed up of switching off and relaxing after work? Then we’ve got the career for you! A former teacher from my own primary school was reminiscing about that era. “Oh, you’d have loved it. You just got to teach. It was wonderful.” Those days, dear reader, are dead with no prospect of resurrection. One scamp from the Education Policy Institute recently claimed the average working hours for a teacher were 48.2 hours...