In the early 1980s, to Margaret Thatcher’s annoyance, union reps and managers at the steelworks in Port Talbot agreed a strategy to save the plant.  As a result, Port Talbot was spared the post-industrial blight visited upon most of Britain’s ex-industrial towns.  Now in private hands, and despite periodic crises, …

Not quite so rosy The establishment media has portrayed the latest UK job figures in gushing terms.  And in fairness, things might have been a lot worse.  Nevertheless, the Office for National Statistics offers several caveats not reported in the mainstream.  Such as: “It is possible that those made redundant …

In circulation in name only People have been hoarding mountains of cash; or at least, that is what the media told us back in July.  The story was superficially plausible.  Pandemic restrictions had prevented people from spending.  And those businesses which dealt in cash could not access a bank branch …

It is mid-November, the autumn has been unusually mild, and the NHS has just declared its first crisis of the 2021-22 winter season.  Across the UK, emergency ambulance services are failing because ambulances which should be on station waiting to respond to emergencies like heart attacks, strokes and road traffic …

What you are watching is an international trade fayre for a burgeoning green industry.  It is no accident that the fossil fuel corporations are over-represented or that the banking and financial sector are heavily involved.  Because, while human-caused climate change is real enough, the “solution” you are being sold is …

With neither map nor compass After a fortnight of establishment media wishful thinking, yesterday’s monetary policy committee meeting brought forth disappointment.  The committee voted 7 to 2 not to raise interest rates after all. Insofar as global shortages, broken supply chains and rising energy costs are not the result of …

On New Year’s Eve 2006-7, something unexpected happened.  For most of the previous two decades, most of the pubs where I live had operated a system where they gave tickets to regular drinkers in order to limit the number of people seeking entry.  This was a problem because one couldn’t …

An early outing for Godwin Godwin’s law put in an early appearance at COP26, when the Archbishop of Canterbury accused politicians who ignored climate change of being worse than those who “ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany: “It [climate change] will allow a genocide on an infinitely greater scale. …

The Indian government ruffled a few feathers at the COP this morning, by raising the thorny question of the £722bn they were supposed to receive to aid their transition away from fossil fuels.  Because, when all is said and done, the proposed transition is all about money.  Decommissioning the old …

So why are they doing this? The sense of urgency is palpable.  We have just months to save the planet.  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that the climate doomsday clock is at a minute to midnight.  The heir to the throne of Britain and a large part of the …