Livingstone and Chavez, stirring it:
Ken Livingstone has been criticised for a proposed deal to get cheap Venezuelan oil for London’s buses, in return for consultancy services…
The deal could subsidise Oyster travel cards for the poorest Londoners, Mr Livingstone said.
Fare’s fair, Chavez-style, or oil-for-wonks scandal?
Sort of; though, for what it’s worth, he does not appear to have committed any great crime over the Dome. Nor did he commit any great crime with his secretary; nor did he commit any great crime by playing croquet.
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Well, hardly. Respect’s stunning success in Tower Hamlets has provoked borderline hysteria amongst some:
Once the sectarian identities multiculturalism inevitably promotes get hold, it doesn’t seem to matter how bad the politicians who exploit
them are, as Respect’s success in London’s East End shows…Once again, we find a slice of the electorate in a poor part of Britain that is so lost in identity politics and victimhood that it will vote for those who stoke their rage, no matter how worthless they are.
You can almost smell the contempt, wafting over from the Betsey Trotwood.
London tubeworkers are threatening to go on strike tomorrow evening.
Andrew at Hold that Thought, a new blog, has drawn my attention to a polemical piece by German social theorist Jurgen Habermas , arguing for a left-wing “yes” vote in the French referendum. Habermas’ major contention is that
What is vaunted today as the “European social model” can only be defended if European political strength grows alongside the markets. It is solely on the European level that a part of the political regulatory power that is bound to be lost on the national level can be won back. Today the EU member states are strengthening their cooperation in the areas of justice, criminal law and immigration. An active Left taking an enlightened stance toward European politics could have also pressed long ago for greater harmonisation in the areas of taxation and economic policy.
My first post at The Sharpener, but – in typically lax fashion – rather than apply myself to producing witty bon mots, dazzlingly fresh insights, sharp apercus, etc, I thought I’d warm up something I wrote over here in the immediate aftermath of the general election, complete with unashamedly partisan appeal (that I hope my quasi-editors don’t object too greatly to.) Rest assured, dear reader, fingers will be pulled out for future postings. In the meantime, this:
With the dust now settling around us, certain new features have emerged in the grey and unpleasant land of British politics. New Labour continues is determinedly self-destructive bearing towards plain authoritarianism, seemingly unabashed; elsewhere, a definite series of new settlements are emerging. Read More