Book Bites: Salvatore Babones’ “The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism and the Tyranny of Experts”
Babones’ short and pithy book challenges the domination of expert elites in political discourse, but acknowledging the fact that democracies don’t always come up with the ‘right’ answers.
Write 100 lines: “We aren’t going to die”
If I were your child’s teacher, I would not fill their heads with nonsense that says that the world is about to end. The Children Act 1989 provides that teachers have a duty of care towards the children under their supervision.
Grenfell Tower: A Tragedy
“From blaming the deaths from the Grenfell Tower fire on the London Fire Brigade it’s only a small step to blaming the residents for not leaving the burning building quickly enough”, says Simon Elmer of Architects for Social Housing
Generation Wars
On Friday 20th September, I joined the children, parents and teachers gathering in Manchester for the Climate Strike where Mayor Burnham proudly announced: “Our generation has failed you. I’m not arguing with you. We are giving you your voice and power.”
Book Bites: Mark O’Connell’s “To Be A Machine”
Some of these futurists have taken Enlightenment reasoning and twisted it to a quasi-religious adherence to a technological future… as redemption. Distorted in a post human mind-set which condemns humans to be inferior, presented as a kind of system failure or flaw that only technological superiority can correct.
A Declaration you MUST sign… or else!
One of the key climate protest organisations recently revealed that “Populations covered by jurisdictions that have declared a climate emergency amount to 141 million citizens, with 43 million of these living in the United Kingdom.
Book Bites: Jing-Jing Lee’s “How We Disappeared”
Described by Xinran as a “brilliant, heart-breaking story”, this is indeed a well-crafted, harrowing tale that interweaves a modern narrative with the war years.
Milton’s Paradise Regained
If we are to build a new city, then Milton Keynes represents the experiential cornerstone. It symbolises the kind of bold, creative masterplanning that we desperately need but haven’t seen the like of since those crazy days of the 1960s.
Home and Huawei: 5G tech and international security
This is a call-to-arms to America’s allies in a shifting geopolitical world in an attempt to instil some loyalty and solidarity.
Extinction Rebellion – the new Millenarian Cult
Shouting: “The End of the World is Nigh” used to be the preserve of eccentric elderly doomsayers with sandwich-boards. Cue David Attenborough. But it is depressing that so many young people have accepted the baseless assertion.
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