Politics

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor “It’s getting longer and longer,” the PM was heard to say over his mic at the end of PMQs today. Sorry Dave, the increase from 35 to 38 minutes must really put a dint into your day. Last week’s overrunning PMQs meant he was late to meet the Chinese. I wondered which despot was left listening to Sam bang on about playing pool with Tricky at University, today. You almost feel sorry for them. The...

By Darragh Roche FORGET everything you know about the world – that’s the first step to understanding America’s true conservatives. ‘True’ is an essential word here. Millions of Americans identify as true conservatives, so much there’s even a popular Twitter hashtag (#tcot, read with care). Donald Trump, the billionaire making liberals everywhere cringe, derives his support largely from these very conservative American voters. So does soft-spoken neurosurgeon and personification of Godwin’s Law, Dr Ben Carson. The rise of these candidates...

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 sat down. It’s their job to know. If the bus drivers didn’t know they would get sacked. But it appears it was Ok for the PM to not answer Corbyn...

By Harry Bedford  Bernie Sanders, one of the candidates for the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential nomination, is already making great waves - gaining huge amounts of public and financial support for his left-wing policies. As well as connecting with his ideals, people find him engaging and inspiring - two essential qualities of a president. But he will never be handed the keys to the White House because he is a self-confessed socialist in a country where socialism is seen as the work...

Opinion from Jimmy Pierce Experts will soon gather in Paris for the annual UN Climate Change Conference to discuss how to cut carbon emissions and halt temperature rises, but the principal contributor is likely to be left off the agenda. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption, species extinction, habitat loss, ocean dead zones and pollution, responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all transport in the world combined. Its impact is persistently ignored, wilfully neglected in...

By Callum Towler  I recently re-watched Adam Curtis' seminal BBC documentary series 'The Century Of The Self'  - a provocative analysis of how Sigmund Freud's ideas about our irrational desires first spawned the PR industry in the 1920s, through his calculating nephew Edward Bernays, and later seeped into politics as a potent method of attaining power. If you haven't seen it, you can view the episode in question below. It is a fascinating insight into the volatile relationship between the state...

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 wept when he discussed families who conduct the long march around department stores “for hours,” before they can pay for goods, bivouacking next to the Baskin Robbins concession and swapping...

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 used to present Corbyn’s first question at his maiden PMQs was on Radio 5 live by mid-afternoon the very same day. A moment with Richard Bacon, is never a moment...

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 deficits is profoundly undemocratic. It reflects the demand of neoliberal ‘handbag economics’ that the public sector cannot and should not ‘create money’ by running a deficit. This denial of the right...