The Corruption Trade

TL; DR – Trump owns a bunch of Bitcoin and because he’s corrupt he’ll pump it. I’m a believer of Bitcoin. I believe in its central proposition. A currency that can’t be debased because it converts energy into a store of value, that is anarchic and has decentralised control, and thus solves the issues emerging […]

Starmer’s Boomerang

The year is 2010. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in an almighty election scrap to keep Labour in power after the 2008 financial crash. He is taking part in a campaign event in Rochdale. He meets an elderly woman, sixty-five at the time – Gillian Duffy. She rattles off a number of questions across a […]

Long Ball Patriotism

It’s been an unedifying year for Birmingham. Alongside our interminable bin strike, we’ve now got something else littering our streets. ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ has seen cheap flags popping up on lampposts across the city, and we’re credited by some of kicking this whole thing off. Lovely. Subtle (and not so subtle) racist motivations aside in […]

The Punk President

What social progressives fail to understand is we’re no longer the counter-culture. Socially progressive ideas are the ‘cultural hegemony’. And Trump represents a counter-cultural challenge to a perceived left dominance. Trump is the new punk. Over the last 30 years huge social progress has been made. And rightly so. It was needed. We should all […]

Bern There, Done That

In the fallout of the election, some people are still failing to see what is right in front of their faces. I’m seeing some terrible takes – but the most frustrating goes something like this: “Who knew that this non-traditional media / podcast space was so influential? Who knew we needed a candidate who was […]

High Horse and Crying Wolf

In the immediate fallout of the Trump victory, we’re already seeing much of the left do what it does best – refuse to accept reality in the most sanctimonious way possible. Harris’s concession speech was bizarre. She came out laughing. There were cheers, chants. Her focus on ‘continuing the fight’ was somewhat surreal. She spoke […]

Learnt your Lesson yet?

Trump’s won. Cue collective shock from the usual quarters. The Mystified – “How can this man have been elected? I just can’t understand it. America is so racist.” The Amateur Anthropologists and pop psychologists – “I don’t understand it, but I’m going to analyse Pennsylvania as if it were a mob of wild animals and […]

The Politics of Vibe

As a young man, I would occasionally (read: always) bore people at parties with political chat. I’d see glazed-over expressions as I espoused on the economic inefficacy of austerity, at least before mercifully being cut-off as someone suggested a game of beer-pong or ‘chin your pan’. By 22 I was a card-carrying member of the […]

A Rich Country

‘This shouldn’t be happening in the sixth-richest country in the world.’ You’ll see this cliche bandied around often. When used it’s trying to invoke a sense of duty through creating a sense of shame, that by us having this wealth as a country we should inherently share it more equitably around. It can be in […]

Caffeine Revelations

I gave up caffeine and it’s depressing how much better I feel. I love coffee. I’m well aware that’s an utterly banal and uncontroversial expression of love to make given 90% of the world consumes caffeine. I’m in good company it would seem. I didn’t want to give up caffeine. I got a nasty infection […]