Farage: good in parts, awful in others

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Good comment piece in today’s Guardian newspaper. Couldn’t help wading into the comments section as per the following: A more positive interpretation would be that the ineffectual attempts to destroy Ukip show the growing fragility of the carefully crafted management of what is sometimes called “the national conversation”. It suggests that in the future, there […]

Popular savvy about finance – more than just money

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  Geoffrey Ingham, a Life Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge has weighed into openDemocracy’s Just Money debate with a worthwhile article called: “Whose money is it?” He talks about how money is created and the way that relates to power. The piece is part of a wider series run by OurKingdom to mark the publication […]

United Kingdom – but for how long?

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This is an article I wrote for this week’s edition of the Fox Report in The Friend Magazine. The Friend is the most widely read Quaker magazine in Britain. Its Fox Reports, of which the Democracy unmasked series is the latest, is the magazine’s investigative arm, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Patrick Chalmers […]

Psychology of human responses to climate change

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I recently spoke at, and took part in, a UK event organised by the Climate Psychology called “Fertile and Sterile Dialogue in the Climate Change Debate”. It was a stimulating day, shared with emotionally smart people who think deeply about why we are so slow to respond to gathering evidence of human-induced climate change. I […]

Dare Scots take heed of Lesley Riddoch?

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I wrote this brief review of my chosen book for Green Left Weekly’s annual recommended books of 2013 I went for “Blossom : What Scotland Needs To Flourish” by Lesley Riddoch, a gem of a book that had me both laughing and despairing as I raced through its insightful pages about my native land. This […]

Brand value of democracy

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Russell Brand has kicked up a welcome fuss with his responses to Jeremy Paxman’s recent questions in an interview about democracy and voting. His was a sparkling performance that showed the limitations of Paxman’s political thinking and highlighted the failures of the UK governance system. I would say the same is true of Western representative […]

Comment faire face au fascisme?

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Yannis Youlountas parle de son film “Ne vivons plus comme des esclaves” – un documentaire qui fait le tour des actions, des journaux alternatifs, des radios rebelles et lieux d’occupation et d’autogestion qui se multiplient dans une Grèce en crise. Pourquoi une mise en ligne gratuite? Youlountas souhaite que l’accès gratuit au film participera à […]

The theatre of elections – US or otherwise

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I have a lot of time for the work of Dan Gillmor, director of the Knight centre for digital media entrepreneurship at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite school of journalism and mass communication. Not least of my likes is his publishing model for his book Mediactive (2010), about how people can be empowered as new […]

Crisis? What crisis? Yeah, right.

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Franco-Greek film director and philospher Yannis Youlantas meets his audience Yannis Youlountas talks about ‎Greece‬, the meaning of ‪‎crisis‬, ‪‎fascism‬ and people’s coping responses after a recent screening of “Ne vivons plus comme des esclaves” (Rough translation: ‘Let’s no longer live like slaves’). The rights-free documentary is due for internet release on September 25th via […]