Not, however, at the latest allegation that the NOTW hacked the voicemail of 7/7 victims. What’s really struck me since I wrote the last post is the slowly developing picture of life behind the scenes at News International. It’s a strange mix of sinister global media manipulation and utter comical incompetence. On one hand we [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Politics'
… although I’m starting to be a little bit surprised.
July 6th, 2011 · No Comments · Journalism, Politics
Tags:News of the World·phone-hacking·Rebekah Brooks·tabloids
What’s most depressing is that I’m barely surprised…
July 5th, 2011 · No Comments · Journalism, Politics
After reading the latest chapter in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal… Missing Milly Dowler’s voicemail was hacked by News of the World (Guardian) … I jokingly remarked that at this rate it wouldn’t be long before a tabloid admitted to kidnapping Madeleine McCann, purely in order to generate a decent story on a [...]
Tags:Milly Dowler·News of the World·phone-hacking·Rebekah Brooks·Rupert Murdoch
Thoughts on AV
May 4th, 2011 · No Comments · Politics
I’ll be voting ‘yes’ to AV tomorrow. That’s not to say I particularly want AV as our voting system, but unfortunately we don’t have the option of proportional representation. It’s Alternative Vote or First Past The Post, and I don’t see British politics (or our general attitude to it) improving while FPTP remains in use. [...]
Save the libraries!
February 5th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Art/Culture, Politics
Today is Save Our Libraries Day, a national day of protest, action and awareness raising against library cuts. I’ve been using libraries for almost my entire life. I can just about (albeit hazily) remember being 3 or 4 and going for the first time to the children’s corner in Lincoln library’s junior section. Three brand [...]
Tags:CILIP·cuts·library·savelibraries
Hacking to the top
January 22nd, 2011 · No Comments · Politics
Although there’s been plenty of coverage of Andy Coulson‘s resignation this week, amid the increasing significance of the phone-hacking scandal, I’ve been surprised at how the media have chosen to focus on the story. The obvious point to make is that snooping into people’s personal voicemail is a Very Naughty Thing Indeed, and we’ve been [...]
Tags:cameron·coulson·phone-hacking
It happens every year!
December 2nd, 2010 · No Comments · Drivel, Journalism, Politics
… that is, the self-important media pronouncements about our inability to cope with the snow. Why we’re a laughing stock with the rest of the world – David Jones, Daily Mail This bursting urge to point out our national shortcomings is like a comfort blanket for the terminal self-deprecator. It usually sits pretty squarely with [...]
Tags:#uksnow·daily mail·snow
Literally a joke trial
November 12th, 2010 · No Comments · Politics
No point going off on an epic burble here. This is simply the most stupid verdict in British legal history since Judge Pickles said “Raped? I’ll bloody show her what raped feels like!” [Yes, GCHQ, that was a joke. A bit like the one Paul Chambers should have been acquitted for. Like the ones made [...]
Tags:freedom of speech·paul chambers·twitter·twitterjoketrial
Oh no, it’s the 80s again!
November 11th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Politics
Students rioting, tabloids screaming, Tories ranting… blimey, I’m expecting to see a DeLorean drive past any moment. Most of yesterday *could* be described without too much bluster or complication. Somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 students and education workers marched through London to protest against education cuts. Around 200 people behaved badly, to varying degrees. That’s [...]
Why I’m so angry with a brewery
October 25th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Consumer, Food/Drink, Politics
I could burble about the disastrously regressive nature of the George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review, the misrepresentation of how the economy got in this state and the lies behind the “all in this together” line. But I won’t. Lots of other people have done this better than I could. However, one little detail has caught [...]
Tags:beer·CSR·cuts·Fuller's·George Osborne
Lame browser, Dave.
July 30th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Politics, Technology
The government has decided it’s quite happy to keep using Internet Explorer 6 as its official web browser of choice. A nine-year-old piece of software that never adhered to commonly agreed standards of usability even back in 2001. So when they start legislating about how they think we should be using our computers I think [...]