Is the world crazy or am I?

The head on collision between reality and satire finally took place today, resulting in the merging of the two into one entity. I am referring to David Cameron's " assault on poverty " which was declared today at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. Satirical newspaper NewsThump has simply published their reaction  with pretty much the same headline as the BBC because there's little warping of reality necessary to make what has been said sound ridiculous. To say Cameron walked into that particular punchline is damning with faint praise. Considering his leadership is already seen as being particularly harsh against poorer families, with tax credit cuts across the board, increases in food bank use and benefits cut for the poorest under-25s being approved under his leadership. The rest of the speech seemed to be punctuated with another ideological attack on his opposition counter-part Jeremy Corbyn, declaring him a Britain-hating, terrorist sympathis

A blockbuster originally started out as the name of a bomb designed to level a city block in wartime. Since then it has become associated with a major commercial cinema hit. This then became the name of a once booming video rental chain empire, an empire that came crashing down in 2013 in the face of complete technological obsolescence, irrelevance and Netflix.  Blockbuster’s hubris during the rise of Netflix is now legendary after the company turned down the opportunity to buy its burgeoning competitor due to fears that it would undermine its core rental business which is now a historical curiosity in the same way as TV rentals. Hindsight being 20-20 this is a great lesson for any modern media or technology company. Never underestimate your own relevance. I share this cautionary tale as we face the inevitable decline of televisual and media empires. The media empires have existed more or less the same way for about 50 years. Print and broadcast dominated the schema. Then in t

Lovers of freedom everywhere rejoiced this week as the world now has a new bogeyman to fear. Bin Laden proved a hard act to follow as far as bearded terrorists who want you, your family and your country dead go but luckily a new challenger has stepped in. Jeremy Corbyn represents a threat to your family security, a threat to national security and a threat to economic security. These aren't my words. These are in fact the words of PM David Cameron's own twitter account after Corbyn's victory. If this seems ridiculous it's because it is and to make the situation more surreal Russia  went on to mock the PM's fear mongering . Do I like Corbyn? I don't know yet. Do I like what he stands for. Actually yes. Why? He actually seems to want to represent people and help people and seems to represent a bit of a change in a sea of dull complacent familiarity. But for the opposition he's perfect. He's got a beard. He could be portrayed as a terrorist for his histo

I realise I'm a bit late to the party but here are a few thoughts about the now rejected assisted dying bill . (As usual all thoughts are my own) To be honest I'm in favour of assisted dying. If you won't get better and you know it and that is what you want to do then I have no problem with that. I would do it myself. It must always be a person's choice they must be able to clearly make that choice clear. That however does not mean that I am in favour of assisted dying right now. And I'm actually relieved that it didn't pass at this moment and I'll explain why. People love to throw around the expression slippery slope, in this case, as if that people will inevitably move towards euthanasia or to the impoverished pressuring their older or sicker family members to discreetly and voluntarily die. I think the first idea is too morally linear and there are so many people who still seem to believe that people shouldn't have control over their own life and

I think it was around 2001 that I remember the last real crisis of immigration between the borders of  Britain and France. Back then it was the Sangatte refugee camp that came under the spotlight. The press reaction was similar to this year, taking a somewhat militant and xenophobic view of the idea that Britain would be swamped as if the island itself was some kind of overcrowded lifeboat. Think Titanic perhaps. Being an impressionable 12 year old as I was back then I remember being a bit scared of the foreigners. Well, here we are in 2015 and we've seen a summer of similar stories tinged with anger due to increased police necessity and disrupted holiday plans (never come between an Englishman and his holiday abroad seems to be the message put across). The situation is eeriely similar to 1999-2002 but one thing now seems to ring true in both. Both are directly after brutal and bloody civil wars. Last time it was the Kosovo conflict and NATO's somewhat pointless (in hindsi