There can’t be anyone with internet access who remains unaware of the horrific events in Connecticut on Friday. An event where – let’s be clear about this – twenty young children and six innocent adults lost their lives. This has, as is typical of school shootings (particularly in America) yet again opened up the debate [...]

This post is now also available at Liberal Conspiracy (where you can also find a lots more left-wing analysis and opinion, so have a mooch around if you haven’t before)   As you are almost certainly aware, today we received the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement – something which our current government has turned into [...]

Just over four years ago, my mum died following a long illness. That’s the traditional euphemism for cancer, but she was ill with it for seven years so I’m using it even if it’s a bit old fashioned nowadays. This, as you might expect, was pretty fucking difficult for me. It was made even more [...]

The government have begun the long-awaited process of means-testing Child Benefit. At first glance this may seem like a fair decision – why should rich families receive state support to help raise their children? But it’s not quite so straightforward. For starters, many rich families never claim their Child Benefit entitlement anyway. So the state [...]

We’re pretty much half-way through this government now, if their plan for a general election in 2015 holds (I know, I’d like to hope for the coalition to collapse in on itself and force an earlier election too, but that means relying on the Liberal Democrats to grow a conscience… it’s not going to happen, [...]

Dave “I won’t be doing any cabinet reshuffles” Cameron has just about finished announcing his first cabinet reshuffle. A couple of the appointments are truly terrifying: Health Secretary – Jeremy Hunt Now let’s not pretend for one second that Andrew Lansley was a good Health Secretary. He wasn’t. He’s reviled. But the incoming Secretary of [...]

So the London Olympics have come to end, not with a bang but with an “Oh god why are the Spice Girls performing?” It’s hard to put into words exactly what was so wrong with the ceremony – well, if you’re trying to do so without using the words ‘shit’, ‘dreary’ and ‘godawful’, at least. [...]

There was a bit of a shooting in Manchester today. People in the area are getting into a bit of tizz about it, which is relatively normal I suppose – but you see I grew up in Longsight, during the ‘Gunchester’ days (that’s when there were so many shootings in South Manchester, the press thought [...]

Danny Boyle’s Olympic Opening Ceremony last night was… surprisingly good. I was expecting something really quite naff, but aside from one of the BBC commentators misrepresenting Milton’s ‘dark satanic mills’ as a reference to the Industrial Revolution, and the inevitable wheeling out of the least talented Beatle (Sir Paul McCartney), it was actually pretty impressive. [...]

The 2012 London Olympics are underway, and already the organisers have come in for a considerable amount of criticism. If every critic is to be believed, then the 30th Olympiad is the least competent, worst-budgeted and most fascistic in the history of the Games. But I’m sure that can’tbe true… The games are already running ludicrously [...]