When the last election came around, many on the socialist end of the political spectrum couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Keir Starmer. They saw him as a compromise too far, a man who had already edged away from the transformative politics they wanted. I understood that view but I still chose differently.
Voting for Sensible Action
I voted Labour under Starmer not because I thought he was perfect, but because I believed he would ...
Scientists and historians love to debate the great mysteries of human civilisation: how the pyramids were built, what Stonehenge was really for, who first ate a carrot, and why we still haven’t learned how to fold a fitted sheet. But perhaps the most important question of all is this: how on earth did humans and dogs first become best friends?
Scene One: The First Stare-Off
Around 20,000 years ago, give or take a few centuries a pack of ...
Ask a politician what taxes are for and you’ll get the fairy-tale version: they fund schools, hospitals and keep the bins collected. Lovely. It makes us feel that every pound we hand over is a moral contribution to society, rather than just another reason we can’t justify £20 for a steak sandwich down at the local pub.
The Economists Can’t Agree
But economists can’t leave anything simple. The conventional crowd argue that taxes ...
If you’ve spent any time propping up a bar in Britain recently, you’ll have heard the gospel according to pint-fuelled patriots: asylum seekers are living in luxury hotels, being served three-course dinners, each armed with a shiny new iPad and a bottomless pint of lager all on your hard-earned taxes. Of course, none of this is true. But when did truth ever get in the way of a story told between mouthfuls of pork scratchings?
Who’s ...
Yes, technically a government can leave the European Convention on Human Rights. You just give six months’ notice, like quitting a gym membership. But instead of cancelling a spin class, you’re walking away from seventy years of legal stability and dropping yourself into the same company as Belarus and Russia. Not exactly the global alliance anyone sensible is queuing up to join.
Peace and Devolution in the Firing Line
The consequen...
