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Seeing RedCecil the lion’s killer is a cretin, yes – but rampant capitalism is also to blame
Cecil the lion’s death at the hands of wealthy US trophy hunter Walter Palmer, who allegedly paid £35,000 for the sickening privilege, has rightly sparked outrage. Indeed, it would be nice if all of the world’s millionaires and billionaires, who together own half of the world’s wealth, could be as charitable as the Microsoft boss. The reason is an endemic economic system that in four decades has shovelled unprecedented amounts of wealth from the rest of us to the rich, encourages greed and envy on an industrial scale and makes the dishonourable whims of a craven elite commonplace.
- Seeing Red
Baron Sewel in the sewer: It’s time to turn the palace of patronage into a democratic chamber and scrap the House of Lords
Sleazy revelations about Baron John Sewel, whose name is aptly just one letter short or “sewer”, seem less like reality and more like a parody produced for a TV satire.
- Seeing Red
Could ‘glam new face of BBC politics’ Laura Kuenssberg be secret weapon in Auntie’s fight for survival?
‘Glam new face of BBC politics,’ the Daily Mail’s headline purred, while The Telegraph splashed a leggy photo of Laura Kuenssberg beneath mostly benign words. If the warm, rather than usually withering, front-page reactions by two of the public broadcaster’s fiercest media critics are anything to go by, the Beeb’s appointment of its first female political editor has been a masterstroke in its fight for survival. Beyond the basic charms approved of by newspaper editors with 1950s mindsets, Italian-born and Glaswegian-raised Kuenssberg is also an excellent journalist with a deep intellect, powerful interviewing skills and a laudable ability to be impartial – something her predecessor Nick Robinson was sometimes accused of lacking.
- Seeing Red
Ashley Madison hacking: Cashing in on sleaze is not quite what Mrs T had in mind with her ‘entrepreneurial revolution’
The hacking of the Ashley Madison adultery website – with the threat of 37million married love rats being exposed – is a cautionary tale in so many respects.
- Seeing Red
Jez we can? Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership surge represents popular frustration with ‘no alternative’ politics
Indeed, Jeremy Corbyn began the Labour leadership contest with bookmakers giving him odds of 100/1 to be victorious. Some of his opponents would surely prefer to drop out of the race than allow it - and Labour’s new one-member-one-vote system is likely to factor in members, affiliates and registered supporters’ second, third and even fourth preferences into the total figure if the winning candidate cannot pass a 50% threshold.
- Seeing Red
Fix the gender pay gap… but how about starting with Whitehall and not just 0.1% of firms
David Cameron’s bid to close the gender pay gap – in which women make 80p for every £1 earned by a man – is a laudable aim.
- Seeing Red
Release the hounds! It won’t just be foxes who will be ripped to shreds by the Tories - and Labour need to be braver and more cunning
I’ll give it to George Osborne: he pulled off a masterstroke Budget.
- Seeing Red
Say goodbye to the weekend! Sunday trading is another Osborne 'job creation' con to entrench a 24/7 low-wage economy
George Osborne has paved the way for this possibility by allowing Sunday trading hours in big English stores to be extended beyond the national six-hour maximum. In his axe-swinging “emergency” budget tomorrow, the constantly calculating Chancellor will give local authorities the power to decide opening hours. While I will be happy to be able to pop to Asda before 11am on Sundays, I also know that extended trading will make it harder for other families to spend time together, go to church – like I did as a child with my devout Catholic mum, a former shop worker – or, indeed, get a much-needed lie-in (as I might have liked).
- Seeing Red
Want to slash the benefit bill? Paying the living wage and halving rent could save the government £12,742 for a working family on my street
George Osborne is expected to slash tax credits in his emergency budget next week as part of a new beefed-up, gloves-off, true-blue austerity programme. There is no evidence yet that the Chancellor, having failed to be punished for the economically illiterate and damaging cuts he made in the last parliament, will replace the shortfall in income for millions of Britain’s poorest working families by raising the minimum wage.
- Seeing Red
This heatwave proves it’s the unrivalled British ability to enjoy (and moan about) sun that really sets us apart
The rest of the world likes to think that rain is the weather condition most associated with Britain and the one that best contributes to our eccentricity.
- Seeing Red
IDS is right: Labour DID bribe voters. Because giving the electorate what they want is DEMOCRACY
Tory statesman Lord Salisbury complained that it would encourage the working classes to pass “laws with respect to taxation and property especially favourable to them, and therefore dangerous to all other classes”. Yes, that’s democracy – and someone should tell Iain Duncan Smith before he gets more angry about the idea of working class people being listened to, or “bribed”, with state support to enable them to live off their poverty wages. Indeed, it is worth pointing out that the only reason we have any kind of democracy – even the deliberately hamstrung Westminster variety - is because the elite that Mr Duncan Smith represents, although determined to entrench their wealth back in the Victorian era, also feared that continuing to deny people the vote would result in a bloody revolution and they’d lose everything.
- Seeing Red
Boris Johnson’s foul-mouthed rant is typical of London’s vile wealthy cyclists
“Why don’t you f*** off and die – and not in that order”: Boris Johnson’s late-night, foul-mouthed rant at a black-cab driver while cycling is no less than I’d expect. Not because Johnson is a Tory (though it would be an accurate mantra for his party), nor because the cabbie was aggressive (and he was) – but because the London mayor is one of a legion of wealthy cyclists who turn into rude renegades when they get on their bikes and roam the streets of the capital like wild dogs. Indeed, a great many drivers in London will have witnessed at least once a biker shouting or swearing at either them or another motorist.
- Seeing Red
Greece’s tragic Great Depression is the ultimate symbol of the European Union’s failure
The depression is literally squeezing the life out of the country – with 94% cuts to hospital budgets the starkest feature of its austerity - and has fostered extremist politics. Now Greece is heading for a state of emergency and exit from the euro after its democratic government refused to make additional cuts demanded by creditors. Like every Greek tragedy, the country’s ill fate and descent into the abyss seems to have long ago been fixed - and yet it was and is still entirely avoidable.
- Seeing Red
Osborne gets Dickensian on debt - so why doesn't he also turn Victorian on the bankers?
George Osborne likes to talk tough on debt. To be fair, Osborne is not the only Chancellor who has compared his Government’s budget to a family purse and said Britain will not to spend beyond its means.
- Seeing Red
Britain needs a Jon Stewart: A truly thought-provoking satirist with real anger who is never deferent to barmy politicians
The end interview, such as last night’s brilliant chat with Nicola Sturgeon in which he compared her electoral ambition to Saddam Hussein’s and she ridiculed America’s habit of invading oil-producing countries, is usually the least good part.
- Seeing Red
Give MPs a 10% pay rise... and give Britain one too
David Cameron is reportedly determined to stop MPs from getting a 10% pay rise.
- Seeing Red
NHS boss blames staff after years of failure at the helm. Mystery solved: Jeremy Hunt IS Sepp Blatter!
The other is Sepp Blatter. Of course, I am being somewhat tongue-in-cheek in my headline by suggesting that the corruption scandal-hit FIFA boss and the Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt are the same person. In the case of Blatter, whose organisation is accused of allowing Russian and Qatari bribes buy the next two World Cups, he first blamed the British media and U.S. justice system - and then settled on a minority of “individuals” within FIFA.
- Seeing Red
The Tories' bid to crush collective action and defund their poorer rivals proves they’re betting on money having the upper hand over people
All are hedge fund managers, City speculators whose industry has saved £145million thanks to David Cameron’s abolition of a little-known investment tax in 2013. Now the Conservatives, having been helped by a greedy and grateful few to amass £15million more than Labour and win the election, are going to war with their defeated rival’s main source of funding: the 6p-a-week contribution by 2.8million members of 15 affiliated trade unions. The Tories announced in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, a jarring festival of pomp and austerity, that union members will have to opt in rather than out of political levies.
- Seeing Red
Does Cameron want Britain to leave the EU? Restricting vote, mentioning the Nazis and teasing Juncker about brandy makes a Brexit more likely
Until a couple of weeks ago, I was 100% determined that I wanted Britain to remain inside the European Union because I am, at heart, an internationalist. This is because I would like to give a bloody nose to David Cameron and the wealthy elite whose craven self-interest and vested power helped elect him. Until very recently, I presumed that the best way to do this would be to vote to leave the EU, an institution that I thought the PM and his tycoon friends cherished.
- Seeing Red
Throw bankers in jail - not the House of Lords: Barclays once again show the law is unfair
Yesterday, it emerged that rogue traders at Barclays, a bank founded by fair-dealing Quakers, had escaped criminal punishment and were granted anonymity after manipulating exchange rates to boost their bonuses and defraud clients. Instead, just like when it was found to have rigged Libor rates three years earlier, the bank was fined – this time a whopping £1.53billion.
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