A brisk walk in the morning to get the blood pumping is exactly what the doctor might order, and this is where I find myself this morning. I’ve been free and available for most of the day for several weeks now, trying to fill my time, and apply for as many opportunities as possible. The building’s exterior is late 19th, early 20th century but brutal. A large, brick warehouse, with two entrances labelled. I walk to the first entrance. No signage tells me this entrance is out of use, but the door doesn’t open, so I proceed to the second entrance. The door opens to an inner door that leads to a reception area. Security asks my name to check me into the building. I am instructed that the lift is not for me, something that MPs have already called unacceptable, and my appointment is on the third floor of the building, so off I go. The toilets are for staff only and I’m informed when I ask where I can go that the Tommy Tucker pub around the corner is the designated spot if I want to relieve myself. I’m in the building for around an hour and fifteen minutes total, and when I get out, I am keen to fill the cool air, get a drink of water and use the facilities as soon as possible. I rush into the nearby shopping centre, where the Underground will take me to my next job search opportunity, where I can finally release my bladder. And then I can breathe. This is the hostile environment that is the DWPs Jobcentre Plus. If Keir Starmer and Liz Kendall want to get people back to work or into work, there has to be a reality check somewhere. This means meaningful employment. Being unemployed or not fit for work should not be a badge that is worn with shame and this does not mean that I am proud of my current situation. I just haven’t found a fit yet that is right for both parties. The assumption should not be that we are workshy or that we need to be coaxed. As people and prospective workers, we have interests that fuel routines in our life. Because I can, I might go to bed at 2am this morning, in order to do the applications I need to do and in order to debrief from the busy day of job searching I have had already. I then get up at 9:30 and start again, with the first app I open in the morning being LinkedIn. On average, I spend 9 hours per day looking for work- well over the 35 hours per week I am expected to look for work by the jobcentre. How this is quantified I will never know, as there is no requirement to submit a timesheet, just to list the roles you have applied for. Does some poor sod at the DWP have to sift through the applications I’ve made on the system, and if this is the case, is there a check that these applications are genuine? I am not a bad actor, but what hypothetically is to stop me from being one? This is the idea that Liz Kendall nor any other minister within Keir Starmer’s government can prevent. The job-search continues, sifting through jobs that LinkedIn has deemed of use to me that may well be non-existent, and reaching out to mutual connections, and connections of mutual connections who might be of value to my job-searching efforts. It’s also key to understand the rise of bullshit jobs. Jobs like Content Creator being advertised across the board can’t all be relevant. Even if you do it yourself, it mostly can’t be a business. The rest is spent on developing skills, and doing the daily tasks that need to be done. Skills I have developed so far include vector design and web development, and I’ve been honing these skills for a fair period of time, as job satisfaction matters, and whilst my old job served its purpose, it was a temporary apprenticeship contract and not what I thought I was signing up to. This was because of the way it was sold, as a path to potentially doing a PGCE. Still, once I got six months in to my job contract, it was something I knew I wanted to stick out to the end to say I’ve done it. This feeling was partially born out from the woefully inadequate amount of people who saw through apprenticeships in the first place. I wasn’t alone in finding the process extremely laborious, the keeping of meticulous timesheets on activities I have undertaken in addition to my working hours dedicated to my qualification. 7.2 hours a week must be dedicated exclusively to your apprenticeship. These hours were labelled as off the job, except they’re anything but. The apprenticeship also taught me an awful lot, and I can use this when pursuing the jobcentre, but why do we make the job search so fiendishly unwelcoming and hostile in the first place? The competition element aside, I put it down to the change of communication in the workplace, how we perceive work as a society, and the rise in useless jobs. Living to work rather than working to live is something I desperately want for myself. Will it ever happen? I don’t know, but perhaps this is something that Liz Kendall should ensure the DWP becomes. (To be published in Europinion)

It might be an unfamiliar contention for some, but satirists in recent years have demonstrated a remarkable ability to extricate themselves from mainstream media’s narratives and forge their own path to not just do their jobs but play the role journalists should be matching up to. In fact, the best journalists are satirists… Again, though a little out there, bear with me - one of the founding tenets of satirical publishing is to speak truth to power. In an interview for my dissertation on the subject, a prominent cartoonist summarised this singularly truth-speaking function to me, and it’s something that I’ve held dear to me ever since, keeping it in mind at all stages of my writing and drawing. We’ve seen this uttering of truth to power most prominently in Private Eye, even if the magazine format rather demeans the nature of the news it presents. As our press consider such inanities as which scantily clad model from Page 3 is partnered to Joe Wicks now, Private Eye doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, has been ploughing his own furrow since 1986, undeterred by the media frenzy that surrounds him and his Fleet Street milieu on a daily basis. As the mainstream media finally cotton on to the idea that their musings over “mass-murderer” Lucy Letby may well have been wrong or fabricated through coercion, another medical doctor had a peculiarly different diagnosis. Dr Phil Hammond, former GP and associate specialist in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, outlined his case in a compelling fashion in the July 2024 issue of Private Eye Magazine, the same month that Letby was sentenced to her fate. The same issue arises should you cast your mind back to the Post Office scandal. Whilst the masterful reporting of Computer Weekly cannot be ignored, Private Eye again did a formidable job in elaborating on the information and expanding the audience that information reached. I am not for a moment trying to undermine journalists in my appraisals here, however, our press is often reactionary in how it approaches subjects, seeking to gain the insight of people who aren’t subject matter experts but are given to pretending that they are, as the friendly wolf draped in sheep’s clothing. We need to ensure that our media is accountable and if that means bowing to the satirical gods, then so be it. In a mad world, only satire is sane. This is because it touches the issues at their roots, ensuring that they unearth all that bubbles under the subject’s surface before reporting. Why would you go to this much trouble for a satirical story? Because facts matter when you’re taking the piss. If you don’t have all the information, then how can you credibly mock the story? Something might come up because sometimes news is stranger than fiction, and then your story is back to square one. This is where Private Eye reporters get it right. People like the late, great Paul Foot whose work on the Birmingham Six led to a miscarriage of justice being overturned, and Doctors like the aforementioned Phil Hammond, who seek to evidence their articles with something so passé as actual journalism, are people that our less factual commentators (cough, Alison Pearson, splutter, Rod Liddle, gag, Richard Littlejohn), don’t tend to pay a second’s notice to. And this is why Private Eye manages to get it so right, because it does its journalism in an under the radar manner. Journalists shouldn’t be renowned, they shouldn’t make the news, and yet so often we have these rent-a-quote commentators available 24/7 days a week, whilst the names of the journalists I report on in this article don’t even approach being household names. People like Richard Brooks, who with his work in Private Eye co-authored their Post Office exposé are names that we should know. They should be on Question Time speaking truth to power, because speaking truth to power (satire) is how you get information. Satire is journalism and journalism is satire, so to toss Private Eye aside as a satirical publication is to ignore and invalidate the great contribution that it has made to our society. You might not believe what I have written in this article, but next time you see a scandal, search it up with the words Private Eye on the interweb and it’ll be there in black and white, along with lots of funny cartoons. (Published in Europinion on the 17th of February 2025)

This week has marked the resignation of Ann Telnaes, professional cartoonist since 2003. It is unusual to care so much about a cartoonist that most reading will never have heard of, but this matters for many, many reasons. Ann Telnaes’s employer is The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame. Telnaes’s latest cartoon (the one that ended her period at WP) criticises three main people- Sam Altman (owner of Open AI), Patrick Soon-Shiong (owner of the LA Times) and finally the aforementioned Jeff Bezos. All are depicted worshipping at the shrine of Trump with a dead Mickey Mouse also in the foreground of the cartoon. I was once told by a cartoonist idol of mine that cartooning and satire was about talking truth to power and holding power accountable for their actions. Many fear that Trump’s presidency is the death of satire, and I have written about Trump before in relation to satirical understanding. Whilst many would think it foolhardy to criticise an employer in such a public way, it is important to note that the cartoon in question was just a rough and could have had edits made to it which would still have kept the substantive point that Telnaes wanted. The media oligarchy that is currently destroying all of our press and our freedoms as a result is something that we should as cartoonists rightly be tackling. It should be what we exist to do, our raison-d’etre. Not for Jeff Bezos it would seem. When this basic tenet is thwarted by billionaire barons that think they own the media, this is damaging. I say think they own, because we are all entitled to our opinions and all entitled to share these opinions. We can be our own media and are through platforms like Ghost, Wordpress and Zenblog. These are all programs that are open source in nature, and there are other more well-known alternatives, such as Medium started by the former Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. There’s also Substack, where CEO Chris Best has written about his condemnation of Trump in the wake of the January 7th riots. These are brilliant platforms for being able to share views, and are… mainly used by the saner individuals that frequent our media. They are encouraging press freedom. Press freedom only goes awry when there is an insecure leader at the helm. Donald Trump, Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, and indeed Patrick Soon-Shiong are all in this category. Elon Musk is also in this camp and the opinions that he has shared about the others in his camp are positive. Tech bros before truth seems to be the message of this cabal, and it won’t aid them in the long run. What happens if and when Trump’s period in office is over? He could in theory rewrite the constitution, ensuring that Hoover’s 22nd amendment was eliminated, but this wouldn’t be as simple as it sounds. Trump does have a majority in the House but there is still opposition to be found in his own ranks as many deem his plans too extreme. What matters here though is the freedom to disagree. Many of Trump’s former senior colleagues, including his own vice-president Pence have disagreed openly with Trump 2024, and this is why Ann Telnaes and press freedom is all the more important. In the UK, we have seen Steve Bell fired in The Guardian over allegations of an antisemitic cartoon, and him overtly stating that he had not drawn this connection. As an avid follower and researcher of contemporary political cartoons I am sure that Ann Telnaes has been hampered in a similar vein to Bell. The critics of the work are powerful, but cartooning is about talking truth to power, as is journalism to an extent. If Telnaes is beholden to journalist colleagues, this is one thing, but being beholden to the owners of the media empire she serves, which includes the second wealthiest man in the world, then makes the whole line of talking truth to power meaningless. Unless they take it on board, nothing will change in our society, and we will be under their relentless control, having to kowtow to whomever they please. It sounds dystopian because it is. Ann Telnaes’s dismissal proves that this dystopia is here. (Published in Europinion on the 30th of January 2025)

Forget New Years’ Resolutions this year. 2025 will be about survival for many. As we persist with the charade that is Brexit and global instability continues, it is good that we have some supposedly common sense politicians at the forefront leading the charge in this country. Having said this, Keir Starmer really needs to do more than just assert himself this year, and explain why he is enacting the policies he currently is. Polling is a tricky thing to look at as we all have our biases and even psephologists will not be immune to this. This is the case with YouGov, who has conducted the latest damning poll. Owned by former Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi and former Tory Candidate Stephan Shakespeare, I examine their polling data with a larger pinch of salt than I otherwise would. Having said this, the latest polling indications that come from YouGov are not pleasant reading for the government. While Sir Keir talks the talk in his New Years’ Message, promising “more cash in your pocket”, he needs to ensure that with much talked about wage rises and investment doesn’t come inflation of other goods which will make life harder for those on lesser incomes. This could include raising the personal allowance rate and ensuring that work pays for those on less than the real living wage foundation’s rate. This currently stands at £26,208 per year. This would mean not raising tax for anyone below this rate, and could boost the finances of people who would actually spend their money on liquid assets. Whilst this might seem radical, given Starmer’s action against pensioners most recently, what the majority of pensioners that I have spoken to feel is that they want their children to have means that they did not. Currently this really isn’t the case. From personal experience, I am still living at home at 27 and most of my colleagues and friends are doing the same. This isn’t because we’re lazy or workshy; when I’m not working, I’m looking for other opportunities, making artworks, writing articles and coding- all pretty active pursuits to improve my professional development. This is something my current job is all about. I’ve also applied to more than 50 jobs over the past month, ensuring I look at all of my skills, transferrable and through my education. Whilst I am currently employed, it is a fixed term contract, so not a permanent role. I worry about the future, but I am not too worried for myself, as I know what I wish to do, and have some contacts through my higher education that can help with this. However, many won’t have this, and it is this that makes me think the YouGov polling methodology is rash and reactionary, rather than anything to be taken seriously. Why should people have a differing opinion to “things are terrible with Labour”, when they have been told this message for the past 6 months by the media, and told a similar message of prophecies of doom before they got into power? Whilst psephology can inform, it also helps manipulate information with the questions asked. “How would you rate Keir Starmer for his messaging?” is a very different question to “How would you rate the Labour Party’s intentions and actions in governing?”. Indeed, no government comes into power wanting to make life worse for people or at least believing that they want to make life worse for people. If they did, they would fall at the first hurdle. Time will tell for Keir Starmer, as long as he doesn’t make any fatal errors which turn the Parliamentary Labour Party unilaterally against him. As he has a large but shallow majority, he can in theory govern with some impunity, as long as he doesn’t upset too many of his own side. Will what Labour do for the country make people feel better though? It has been recently touted that Britain is now the sick man of Europe. If people feel sicker for longer and have increasing comorbidities, this leads to a lack of productivity. Political rhetoric exclusively, like the common British adage, “Keep calm and carry on” cannot solve this, and we will need support and perhaps input from allies in order to finally climb out of the chasm we have dug over many years. (Published in Europinion on the 27th of January 2025)

The latest asylum seeker news is damning for those wanting to demonise migrants seeking a better life in Europe and the UK. The troubling but all too familiar figure that 69 people died on the channel crossing between France and the UK this year should send alarm bells that certain people within the media are seeking to weaponise this tragic loss of human life into a battle between migrants and us. I’m talking about the latest convert from Conservative to Reform. Enter stage far right Marco Longhi. In a crass move, the former Conservative MP sought to explain how totally unchecked migration drastically damages our public services. This narrative is not new, but as the data shows, we invest a far smaller amount in our health service compared to other European countries and, ironically, our transport infrastructure is privatised and often owned by the foreign institutions that commentators like Marco Longhi seek to vilify. We need to simultaneously assure ourselves and others that we can handle the issue of net migration without our infrastructure crumbling in order to maintain our fragile position on the world stage. I do not seek to vilify Britain but we are not the once great nation that we used to be, and to pretend otherwise is foolhardy. If reform is what political rejects like Marco Longhi want, then looking to Reform UK is not the answer. Although perhaps, neither are the Conservatives, and, although in its early stages the new Labour government, doesn't appear to be effecting seismic change on current inspection. Although early signs are promising, they could all be changed upon spending reviews, and so this is not the provision of change that we were necessarily promised. Reform UK are attracting evermore support though, and speculation is rife among the politically interested. Some are even speculating that former and disgraced Prime Minister Boris Johnson may join their ranks . Although this may stretch credulity, we should not underestimate Reform UK’s threat to the political makeup of Britain. An easy way to mitigate their potential impact would be for progressive parties (and I still wishfully include Labour within this description) to wholeheartedly accept that electoral reform is a must. This could prove to take the wind out of HMS Nigel Farage’s sails, and lead to a deep shock for the far right of the country. Some proponents of First-past-the-post insist that the system protects us from the extremities of the far-right, however the evidence proves the opposite is true. We need to address the nub of the issue of Brexit, 9 years on from that wretchedly misinformed vote, and seek to ensure that people’s voices are heard in a proper way. Whilst Labour has admirably sought to further feudalise Britain with its devolution plans, this move arguably addresses the result of a problem and not the problem itself. We need to ensure that all voices are heard in our Parliament and if this includes the far-right and far-left alike, then so be it. We are a long way from the next planned general election in 2029, however, already polls are suggesting that minority parties will take 181 seats, including many high-profile Labour losses. Under this scenario, the two major parties will hold a total of 450 of the 650 seats. The data excludes Northern Irish political parties, which brings the running total to 450 out of 632. Whilst this might seem like a significant amount, we must consider that the main government and opposition are extremely unlikely to join forces as a coalition government. The leaders in the race are likely to secure just shy of 230 seats, barely a third of the seats up for grabs, probably representing even less of the population as a percentage. We might ask why this matters in the long run, if our voices are faithfully represented. The Global Democracy Index does, after all, rank us in the top 25% of nations globally. However, there is a ‘but’ coming here and that is that this data deliberately omits electoral participation from this grading criteria. If all factors are considered, then the difference is stark. In the 2023 Economist Intelligence Unit (the latest dataset available), whilst the UK still qualifies under the parameter of full democracy at 18th on a list of 167 countries, the democracies that are ahead of us are telling. A plurality of the nations ranked in the full democracies section of the chart use some kind of proportional means to elect their representatives. Whilst it is good that the UK is in the 8% category of full democracies, one wonders how long this can last without our acceptance of electoral reform to some extent. In an oft-touted phrase by politicians nowadays, we must ‘reform or die’. (Published in Europinion on the 20th of January 2025)

“Keir Starmer snubbed by not being invited to US President Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration”- so say the tabloid headlines. Indeed Sunder Katwala, former director of the Fabian Society notes that no prime minister has ever been invited to a US Presidential inauguration. So much for press impartiality! Donald Trump is potentially lining up his allies like you would toy soldiers when he devised his invite list this time around. One hopes that they all fall like dominoes, as it’s worth noting that many of the people that Trump has invited to his upcoming inauguration are the dictators and despots of the world. I’m not sure Keir Starmer would appreciate being among the insalubrious company of Xi Jinping, Javier Milei, Jair Bolsonaro and Viktor Orban, with the possibility of Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-Un popping in unannounced. Even if Starmer had been invited, that company is enough to put anyone off their burger and fries. It’s a genuine Rogues’ Gallery of villainy and yet we are supposed to take solace in the special relationship with the US. I’m not even sure I’d categorise Starmer as an ally of Trump. Apparently Starmer defines himself as a woke socialist, words that I’m certain Trump would find abhorrent. Trump’s current invitees are certainly not what anyone would describe as woke. But perhaps the idea of Wokism, that Trump so readily attacks, is one that is already a false one. To be woke is to be fair, to be just, and this is the difficulty that the right is currently tying themselves in knots over. Theirs is a world where the unjust is justifiable, unless it’s against them. They don’t want to be woke. Woke is a word that has been harnessed by the rightwing and spurred on by the media, and Trump has seized this territory of anti-woke to be his emblem, the thing that will propel him once again to prominence on the global stage and to be the media’s favourite topic of the day. Trump-supporting media seem to understand all too well that providing context would send their arguments toppling like a house of cards. Whilst Trump’s outward opinions are certainly more bombastic than his predecessors and likely his successors, this does not entail that they will lead to any kind of action other than performative. A lot of it is bluff and bluster. It was nearly 10 years ago that Trump promised a wall, and Trump’s administration barely managed 15 miles of new wall in his first term. What’s more dangerous is that Trump’s rhetoric will perhaps lead to his own demise. Like any rabble rouser, he’s riling people up, and then producing nothing. Because of this we cannot assume that Trump is a good actor, in a way that we have with other presidents. The UK do not have the upper-hand in any relationship with the USA, because put quite plainly, we don’t have much to offer other than common sense, and Trump’s sense is horrifically uncommon, more akin to Ester Mcvey’s dalliances with the topic. It could be that the UK are not the audience that President Trump wants to court, or it could even be that we have so ridiculously inflated our own self-importance over the years. Gone are the days of Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves. Trump knows this and will not hesitate to cut off the limb that only British politicians refer to as the special relationship. The UK government should be under no illusions here, and seek a potential renewal of relations with allies closer to home, countries that luckily rank higher on the Corruption Perceptions Index than the USA. This surely won’t have passed Keir Starmer’s advisors by, but we hold on to the special relationship like a poisoned chalice, when really it’s a ticking time bomb. No leader is entirely faultless but Trump takes the biscuit with his concern for egotism far above the national interest. Perhaps this will make him treat his second time in office with more urgency than his first, but his grouping of allies doesn’t fill me with hope. Unless he amends the constitution, he’s only got one shot left at the prize role. A man is judged by the company he keeps and judging by Trump’s companions, he’s got a long way to go. (Published in Spotted News on the 22nd of January 2025)

It should be of no surprise that Dominic Cummings has most recently backed Elon Musk in his crusade for representation on social media. This is the same Dominic Cummings whose actions led to Boris Johnson’s untimely demise. Misfits and weirdos was what Dominic Cummings called for and in truth, this is a perfect description of both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Misfits and weirdos with odd skills won’t ensure the future of the country though, by any means. But then critics of Elon Musk should be careful where they tread also. Ivor Caplin, formerly Labour MP for Hove, who recently criticised Musk, was accused of having engaged in sexual contact with a minor. As those on the left, we need to be whiter than white, if we are to combat the tide of rightwing blowhards who wear their faults so publicly, it’s almost like they’re proud of them. It’s one thing being proud of yourself for overcoming mistakes, it’s another thing completely being proud of yourself for your mistakes. This is what people like Dominic Cummings, Elon musk and indeed Boris Johnson do so well. It’s inconceivable to think any differently for them, because their mistakes have resulted in them falling upwards. The same will not rightly occur to Ivor Caplin, but it’s intriguing how the rightwing profess a distaste in these activities when their enemies are effected by them. If they themselves are afflicted with something as mundane as the rule of law, they can then cry foul play, as we saw with the latest Trump case- yes, this is a global phenomenon. I am not excusing any illegal activities in this article, but a level playing field should be applied to all who partake in these. We’ve had columnists write in the media regarding these activities, so we know them to be true. Where was their consequence? It was non-existent, because illegality doesn’t apply if you, and they revel in it, because they know they have the impunity to do so. As the tech tycoon Mike Lynch summarises: “The British government needs to defend its citizens, is it right to be sending someone to another country, especially one which has the justice system issues of the US? A US prosecutor has far more control over you than your local bobby in the British system.” Our legal system does not have the power to do this currently, but we need to ensure that these misfits and weirdos who were in office until recently are prosecuted for what they did to our country, and the damage that they will continue to do. I am not talking about legal sanction, but rather ignorance. If we ignore them, starve them of the oxygen they so crave, then maybe they will cease to be a part of our media environment. If we continue to platform them, because the fringes of the media also platform them, then we should just give up on improving our society now and be done with it, because it will never be conservative enough for them. They are conservatives in the truest sense of the word- they mostly want to conserve the wealth, justice and for themselves, no one else. That’s why Mike Lynch’s views are so worthy of comment earlier in this article. They shouldn’t be, if we lived in a society that placed equity at its heart. Equity is very different from equality, and this is where I think the Labour government should be placing its energy at the moment. Equality is the state of being equal, whereas equity is about fairness. Things can both be equal and unfair. People like Dominic Cummings who back Elon Musk seek only to take us further away from solutions related to equity. They know it too, but they are just trying to be talked about for their egotism is more important to them than anything else. This is the source of their power- the reason they are able to invest so much energy into rising to the top, but egotism feeds on itself, and that’s a problem for all of us, as narcissists will attract eachother. That’s how we see two disparate individuals come together to support eachother, that and Dominic Cummings is potentially trying to muscle his way into another career after his failure as an aide to Johnson. Birds of a feather will flock together, and so should we to ensure they do not succeed.

Gad Zooks! Or should I say Gad Zusk as the unholy alliance of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg join forces to manipulate information to their own ends. The new media barons appear to be social media barons, and this is dangerous, because they have a far larger reach than what we perceive. To a certain extent, you could say, “hey-ho, if I’ve got nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear”, but it’s not as simple as that. It’s about our civil liberties of privacy, outlined in the UK’s Human Rights Act of 1998. Now when this legislation was drafted, AI was merely being talked about in science-fictional terminology. We were also conditioned to believe that AI was a cute and comfortable thing, with the launch of the Furby. Whilst not AI implicitly, it learnt our language and had to listen to know what to say next. AI on social media has a similar concern. Today, as well as supporting Donald John Trump more wholeheartedly than he has previously, Mark Zuckerberg also took a step into the post-truth world, when he sacked its fact-checkers in favour of community notes Whilst the great and the good have largely made a move to Bluesky as a social media platform, with the CEO Jay Lantian Graber insisting that it's a more democratic arena than its competitors, there is a risk of echo-chamber politics. This is largely harmless when you are in a fairly democratically stable position, but when we have the chief troll who is one step away from despot soon to become leader of the free world and this time unhampered by congress, Houston, we have a big problem. And while the great and the good are on Bluesky, on X we have the vagabonds and highwaymen of the internet, those that wouldn’t appear out of place in media outlets sponsored by political parties and therefore with clear biases. The arenas of X and Facebook that used to be democratic places for sensible people to commune and join groups with people who shared likeminded views, are now becoming echo-chambers for only one side. Your nan’s homemade pie is no longer the concern of the CEO of Facebook, because what does Zuck earn from that? It’s far easier to go political and then it is a question of finding the reactionary base. What is a more emotional belief? There is nothing wholly insensible about conservatism as an ideology, but there is a problem with conservatism, nationalism and patriotism combined, because it becomes a melted immovable sludge that renders some implausibly awful policies. As an example of this, we have the latest clause that Meta removed from its terms and conditions. This clause means that I could refer to my mum, my female colleagues and my female friends as a household object with no consequences. This is quite literally objectification and yet we are somewhat beholden to these media mutants, as per there terms and conditions, we technically own all of the content. Let's cut to the crux: “Facebook can use the photos and videos you post in any way without paying you”. This is the problem. We as users are powerless. So what’s the alternative. Well, they’ve been around for a lot longer than we think. Bluesky is probably the most zeitgeisty but other alternatives, similar to Facebook are Mastodon and Diaspora. Mastodon was founded in 2016 and Diaspora was founded in 2010, so they are established platforms, and ones where we own the content we post fully. As well as this, we don’t have to kowtow to our billionaire overlords on these programmes. I’m coming very close to realising that Facebook, much like X is not the right place for me, but my relationship with Facebook as a programme goes back much further than my relationship with Twitter/X. It was there when I first learnt to ride a bike- yes I was a late learner, through my awkward teenage years, for fledgling political debates with randomers online. As a result to an extent, it’s a part of me. It’s not that easy to separate from this. I’ve also got a lot of contacts on Facebook and I don’t know whether I’d see these people on the other side. They’re not friends per se but they are people of interest, and who I like seeing on my feeds. Rubbernecking is part of the social media lifestyle. It will take a time to adapt, but we need to find a way to extricate ourselves from this bile eventually. Let’s take the first steps now. (Published in Spotted News on the 9th of January 2025 and Europinion on the 18th of January 2025)

Many people will know Dr Seuss for the Cat in The Hat, The Grinch and The Lorax, but Theodor Seuss Geisel was far more a political activist than we give him credit for as a modern society, and indeed, the incoming and former president Donald John Trump may be utilising a famous Seussism in his own language. America First was adopted by Donald Trump as a means of gaining power for he knew populism was very easy to exploit. This America First attitude was linked by Seuss in his cartoons to Nazism, and whilst this might seem a bit far-fetched, he has a point. A certain right-wing form of nationalist populism can be linked to Nazism through the lens of exceptionalism of nationality and race over others. Whilst not calling for the elimination of races, Trump is calling for the displacement of them at a rapid rate, and has adopted an isolationist approach in some circumstances (Build the wall). Populism is easy and lazy because it doesn’t thrive on logic, but rather heated opinion. Whilst they will point to figures on immigration, they will not point to the details of those figures, and instead seek to demonise the black and brown minorities of those that will come. Seuss knew that racism was a dangerous and foolish thing. Why is it foolish? It’s just based on the amount of melanin in your skin- nothing more, and given the old leathery pumpkin who spreads these messages, he should be more sympathetic. It's a well-trodden path but Trump’s mother was an immigrant and his grandfather was an immigrant. The common nickname for Trump, Drumpf, was his paternal grandfather’s surname. It is perhaps fitting then that Seuss portrays the America First ideology as being akin to Naziism as well as one that belongs in a circus. Indeed, the two are joined at the hip or at the beard so it is not a rash association to make. However, republican opinion is very different as 68% of republicans believe that Nazism is left of centre and 43% see Nazism as the pinnacle of leftism as of 2023. There are extreme views on either side, however, it is important to realise that the Overton Window, named after American Joseph Overton skews heavily to the right in terms of popular opinion in the USA and Trump takes the biscuit in recent years, even though many of the policies of the opposition are more in line with US actual popular opinion. When it comes to satire, it’s even more complicated, as you have to satirise both sides. A famed cartoon of one of Seuss’s contemporaries across the pond, David Low, shows Stalin and Hitler bowing to eachother. Both were dictators and killed millions but they are satirised in identical ways and not in a callous way. To satirise other politicians is difficult, and this is the thing with Trump. I often think Trump and Boris Johnson, to make another hackneyed comparison, are too easy to satirise, but because of this they become more complicated. Why? Because they’re already too ridiculous. Now someone like Vance is more complicated. Whilst his views are arguably more extreme than Trump, he wears them lightly, and presents himself as the serious man to Trump’s slapstick. Seuss takes slapstick and makes it a serious thing though, as we see that he ridicules dictators and the nationalistic attitudes that they so often take. This is the way we fight them- one of the only ways that we as creatives have. Often though the seriousness of our ideals come down to things we were taught as kids. Basic morals make our political opinions, and we twist these basic morals to form the correct view of the world for us. If we are raised on extremism, we will view this as the only cromulent view of the world, and this is where I think Seuss’s views matter in today’s world. America First is an example of this, but also, we lose our inquisitiveness as we age. As the mother in this cartoon thinks what she is reading is perfectly acceptable, the children are rightly shocked and horrified. America First itself is a far more sinister term than we imagine, with America First advocating for Germany and the Nazis in the Second World War. As Seuss would and did say, “I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights”. Those close to these ideologies will see great things and the camaraderie within the organisations will ensure they foster and spread the message far and wide, but it’s the little people who it will hurt- the silent or silenced majority. (Published in Europinion on the 4th of January 2025)

We’re fast approaching silly season, that time of year when the politicians all go on their jolly hollybobs and forget about their parliamentary business until the new year… but the silly season won't quite stop there this year. Indeed, with Donald Trump’s inauguration in January incoming, we are about to enter a silly quadrennium the likes of which have not been seen since its inception in 1861. This period, if anything like Trump’s first four years in office, will be more about bluster than bills, and more about rhetoric and revenue than revolution. This is not to say that there is nothing to worry about as rhetoric without factual basis is a genuinely dangerous beast. We have seen it in decades and centuries gone back, with Putin and Assad most recently but also with more alarming politicians like Hitler and Mao. As a population, we have to be wary during silly season as this is the time when information regarding political decisions that could be controversial are released, and so the “fun” for commentators does not stop. Indeed there is little “fun” in seeing the world turn to fire and ash as political opponents seek to play games on what causes it. There is also very little entertainment to be had over politicians seeking to avoid and obfuscate these issues for pettier problems such as migration and race hatred. We see this in recent days with the blame and scapegoating that political commentators and newspapers do regarding immigration statistics. Media outlets talking about “is Labour’s immigration plan working?” five minutes into their period in office does almost nothing to help matters. Under the YouTube video that the cited article links to are acerbic comments without much thought stating that Starmer should have done more in his period of four and a bit months in office. I believe he has done a fair amount in this time, but as with any role in politics there is always more you can do depending on the audiences you ask. Columnists at GB News and The Daily Telegraph are having conniptions at the thought of something somehow bettering society for those with less disposable income than their own financiers and potential readership, however there are still problems for Labour to address, and we shouldn’t ignore that they have a massive mountain to climb before reaching the dizzying heights of past Labour triumphs. Labour’s comms strategy in particular needs a lot of work. Love them or loathe them, no one can deny that Reform UK’s message of less migration is one that is short, snappy and significant to a public that know bleak economic forecasts will be with us for years, if not decades to come. This messaging, however corrupt it may be in not offering an actual solution, works! Negative campaigning is much easier than positive campaigning and can lead to huge gains; we only need look at Brexit to understand that reality. Offering hope of change though is powerful too. The UK General election was barely 6 months ago. However shallow Labour’s victory at this election was, it proved that people did indeed respond to the message of change that Keir et al were offering. We need to remind ourselves that whilst we see alarmist headlines in the media such as “Boris’s rallying cry as Starmer sets up Whitehall EU Surrender Squad”, the prevailing opinion among voters is still to lean towards Labour. In 7 of the past 10 polls (correct as of 16th December 2024), we see that Labour is leading, and yet with the vitriol we see spewed by the media on a daily basis, you’d think that they were systematically slaughtering kittens. This is what silly season is made of, and this is a defining base that the media instils in our journalism at all times. Silly season isn’t just an era. It’s a popular pastime for these so-called journalists. I am under no illusions that being a comment writer is akin to being a propagandist at times for your favoured viewpoints, however, there is opinion defined by fact and then there is baseless opinion. In the lead up to Trump taking control in January, let’s be mindful that populist politicians can and will say anything to get people to rally around them, and let’s be smarter and wiser to combat it. (Published in Europinion on the 24th of December 2024)

As Thames Water, Southern Water and a plethora of other water companies pour money down the drain, we are left at the mercy of the incompetent watchdog Ofwat. The incompetence of such a machine is exemplified by the chairs of these organisations, people who have been in one public service and failed miserably there so jump ship to the next public service they are given the opportunity to muck up. Iain Coucher is the main man at Ofwat, a man who already failed at Network Rail, and yet we trust him with what is one of our most valuable resources: water. The water that water bosses have dumped tonnes of excrement and effluent in is the same water that he is in charge of and that we drink. We should have had enough of this now, and if opinion polls are anything to go by, we have. In 2017, 83% of the UK population favoured water nationalisation. This would be a very easy win for Starmer, were he to announce it tomorrow on the final day of parliament, however, he won’t. This is not because I fear he is spineless, but it is because he is in a state of policy paralysis, as there is just too much to deal with, and too many possibilities that would help the United Kingdom at this time. However, in this case, I fear political inaction and lack of funding in our public services will lead to greater hardship and austerity in the future, by the backdoor. The only other country besides England and Wales to have a fully privatised water system is Chile, and Chile’s water scarcity is becoming an issue. If we are not so careful ourselves, we could be in a very similar position. There are certain things that should be easier for coastal countries like us and Chile, and yet with water, we are both failing miserably. We have not recognised that water is a common good, and this does date back to Thatcher but more than this it is British exceptionalism, and the case that we believe we can do things better than everybody else, despite everybody else. This happened with the railways, it happened with the water, it happened with our energy and every time these industries are failing, we are allowing them more money to dig themselves out of a rhetorical hole of their own creation. I might sound like a radical leftist at this point, but let’s row back a bit through the proverbial swamp we call Great Britain. Some of the top economies in the world, the top capitalist economies in the world have nationalised water, as it’s recognised as a resource for the common good. The United Nations despite its many failings, recognises water and sanitation as a human right. There is a reason they draw the distinction between water and sanitation. In the case of human rights, without one, the other cannot exist. It’s a sad state of affairs that in the 6th richest economy in the world, we are faced with these gargantuan problems almost exclusively due to privatisation. People in a modern civilised country should categorically not be faced with water scarcity due to mismanagement of our water supply by wealthy charlatans who dump raw waste into our rivers and seas. These same wealth obsessed companies then proceed to hand out bottled water, which further damages our environment. There is no need for this, and we shouldn’t be feeling grateful or be made to feel like we are receiving such exceptional service that the price of our human right goes up. The government’s own documentation suggests: “The right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, affordable, safe water for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene”, and by the actions of Thames Water, Southern Water and other profiteers, they are failing on their own policy. Whilst it is complex, it should not be rocket science for our ministers and leaders to run our water supply. They could not do a worse job than the current shower of excrement that are running the show and whilst water bosses are bathing in money, we as consumers are left to fix the leaks in their company finances. Our water industry is a fetid swamp and, until it is nationalised, will remain so.

Bob Geldof is known for many things. Among the most notable is his founding of the charity BandAid. Geldof founded BandAid in 1984, and for the time it was a sensation. Since it has gone on to have several revivals. However the trouble with Geldof is that he seeks public opinion now in much the same way as he did in 1984, with no change of tactics, based on the time that we are living in; there’s much that has changed since this period, including increases in the gaps between rich and poor, the Black Lives Matter movement and increased sociopolitical and environmental tension globally. It is also worth noting that opinions change with time. Whilst many celebrities appeared on the original and in revivals of BandAid, that doesn’t necessarily mean they support it now, but what do BandAid supporters say about it? Well, Midge Ure who is one of the musical icons who sung on the original single seems to think the detractions from individuals are baseless, stating that, “It wasn’t politics, it was music”. Whilst this is potentially correct from a facile standpoint, Midge Ure ignores the fact that art is by its very nature, trying to make a statement. Art whether he likes it or not is often political, and this includes music as an art form. There is a certain white saviour complex to the performance. The original BandAid membership was mostly white, as only 5 of the original 48 members involved were black. Whilst this might have been socially acceptable in 1984, fast forward to 2014 for the 30th anniversary revival single, and only 3 of the 25 involved are black or ethnic minority background. This is barely an increase in representation over the many decades where we have seen black representation in contemporary music soar. The likes of Lizzo, Beyoncé and John Legend should have changed the scene but woefully they have not. If we look at black representation in British music, the representation is equally as woeful. JLS is the one band I can think of off the top of my head in British music, that is black, and that might just be because Oritsé Williams’ sister was in my year at school. It is not just a problem for BandAid, but it is one that they could address and be really active as champions of what Africa can and has done for the world. Unfortunately given the current rebuffs from Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, this all seems quite unlikely.