The commemoration of martyrs is an enduring British pastime. This week a memorial statue of Princess Diana will be unveiled outside Kensington Palace, presumably because the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park was too cryptic. Also this week, the country marked the five-year anniversary…
In his 1945 article on ‘The Sporting Spirit’, George Orwell wrote: “If you wanted to add to the vast fund of ill-will existing in the world at this moment, you could hardly do better than by a series of football matches between Jews and Arabs… [among…
Given the ubiquity of 1980s sounds and aesthetic in modern pop music (recently taken past the point of tedium by Miley Cyrus’s Plastic Hearts and The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’), it was only a matter of time before someone asked, “Why is no-one tapping the vast…
Picking at the carcass of the local elections, one faction in British politics is on hand to guide the way for the Labour Party. As the results trickled in, with news Labour had lost Hartlepool for the first time since the seat was created in…
Watching Boris Johnson’s temper tantrum at this week’s PMQs, I was struck by the thought that I’d seen this before. In a video clip from November 2014, the then Mayor of London responds to some mild heckling from Andrew Dinsmore, a Labour member of the…
First published on Medium on November 13th, 2020 “Articles, articles, articles, write that you remain unremarkable” The above is the best line in ‘Therefore I Am’, a new single from the sister-brother musical team of Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, released on Thursday. What’s…
First published on Medium on July 9th, 2020 For those who found the slogans “Take Back Control”, “Get Brexit Done”, and “Stay at Home” too challenging, this government has just the thing. A triumph of brutality, the Prime Minister’s recently unveiled slogan “BUILD, BUILD, BUILD”…
These columns were published on Lit during 2020. Labour & Tory Political Ill-health Left Us At COVID’s Mercy – November 20th, 2020 Trump’s Bizarre Convention Is The Natural End-Point Of Tory Culture Wars – August 31st, 2020 Conspiracy Corbyn Is Still Wasting Labour’s Time. When…
First published on April 14, 2020, on Medium April is a cruel month to be stuck indoors, especially when the elusive English sunshine makes an appearance. Opening Philip Larkin’s Collected Poems, I noticed the following in ‘Spring’, from The Less Deceived (1955): “Spring, of all seasons most gratuitous, Is…
First published on April 14, 2020, on Medium Not even Dominic Cummings could have orchestrated the propaganda coup of Boris Johnson rising from the dead on Easter Sunday. This was clearly the work of a higher power, and Johnson knows just who to thank: Thien…