What have Greece and the UK got in common? In addition to being the two worst performing economies in Europe, it turns out that they also both have politicians who fiddle the data to pretend that they are doing better than is actually the case. Britain, famously, hides massive underemployment, …
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Figures released under a Freedom of Information request indicate that climate change has been a victim of the UK government’s austerity cuts. The request to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) – which plays a lead role in assisting people in some of the most at-risk countries on earth on …
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The apparent resilience of the UK economy in the face of last year’s Brexit vote has confounded economists and pundits. The Remain Campaign’s dire ‘project fear’ predictions simply failed to materialise. The sharp fall in the stock market – more a reaction to the surprise result than to its economic …
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As media outlets wheel out the political and economic luminaries who supposedly “saved the world” a decade ago, journalists are still repeating the biggest lie of all: that there was a “credit crunch.” The official story goes something like this: wicked mortgage lenders in the USA had been making loans …
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Some years ago I watched a group of boys arguing over a bag of sweets. The boy whose sweets they were was adamant that nobody else was going to have them. Despite his friends imploring him to share at least some of the sweets, the boy refused. Things deteriorated into …
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Green virtue signalling has become so prominent that even Tory ministers are getting in on the act. Today, Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark will announce a new Industrial Strategy that, apparently, aims to power the UK economy with solar panels. What’s not to like? Except, of course, that this …
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While the 2008 financial crash finally exposed the infantile economic theories behind neoliberalism, most of its political claims remain unchallenged. Key among these is the belief that somehow successive neoliberal governments have been “rolling back the state.” Ripping up so-called “red tape,” cutting taxes and providing ready access to finance …
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Every 40 year or so, it falls to the mass of the population, led by a politicised youth, to deliver a knockout blow to the prevailing economic/political consensus. The affluent (neo)liberal classes are inevitably horrified when this happens, since it rocks the foundations of their comfortable way of life. The …
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The cognitive dissonance is palpable among Tory supporters today. Having spent the last eight weeks spouting the economically illiterate mantra that there is no #magicmoneytree, they have discovered that when it comes to buying the votes of the political wing of the Old Testament there really is a magic money …
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On a cold Sunday in December a subcontract electrician makes some final changes to a railway signalling circuit. The electrician is at the end of his thirteenth consecutive week of seven day working. He is not entirely sure that the work he has done is correct. But any problems will …
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Consciousness of Sheep