The “phone-hacking scandal” needs a good name. “Hackgate” or “Phonegate” just won’t cut it — that nomenclature is for little controversies that one wryly compares to Watergate in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. This one actually is like Watergate, and its consequences could be no less far-reaching.
The one thing the scandal isn’t really about — not [...]
Filed under: conservatives, culture, davidcameron, jonathanbirch, journalism, media, ukpolitics on July 18th, 2011 | No Comments »
Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, today outlines plans to cut the science budget while forging stronger links between science and business. A bit ominous, but not particularly surprising. The really ominous thing about this news is how the BBC has reported it. At the time of writing, the BBC News story quotes “Martin Reese, president [...]
Filed under: culture, jonathanbirch, journalism, ukpolitics on September 8th, 2010 | No Comments »
Who’d have thought it could be so complicated? Unisex toilets are everywhere these days, but Manchester seems to have a new innovation: unisex urinals. How liberal. The cause of tension is presumably that the urinals are a little bit exposed. Even men want privacy sometimes. The future can only be unisex cubicles. What a [...]
Filed under: culture, jonathanbirch, socialcohesion, society on September 30th, 2008 | No Comments »
This is the question put to some of the world’s most eminent intellectuals (such as Steven Pinker, pictured) on this fascinating page, which I’ve been meaning to write about for some time. Responses range from climate change to Wikipedia, incorporating science, politics, philosophy and maths. There’s (arguably) some more veiled sexism from Simon “Not Borat” [...]
Filed under: climatechange, culture, ideas, jonathanbirch on January 20th, 2008 | No Comments »
Application forms seem to throw forth ever new quantities of paper work. The myriad of questions can be quite baffling, yet there is one form above all which strikes one as being unnecessary, intrusive, dare I say offensive; the Equal Opportunities form on ethnicity. As I wade through mountains of scholarship application forms for [...]
Filed under: culture, socialcohesion, society, ukpolitics on May 17th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
I’m too young to remember much about the referendum on a Scottish Parliament – I do remember that it didn’t really dominate discussion in my household. We were living in California at the time, although my parents were voting by proxy, and while I’m sure it came up at the dinner table every so often, [...]
Filed under: culture, history, identity, scotland, ukpolitics on May 5th, 2007 | 10 Comments »
About a month ago, after receiving a large volume of emails on the topic, the journalists whose discussion forms the highlight of my week in the form of Slate’s Political Gabfest were forced to explain their reasons for referring to Hillary Clinton as ‘Hillary’ while others, such as John McCain, were respectively cited as ‘Senator [...]
Filed under: barackobama, culture, election2008, gender, hillaryclinton, johnmccain, uspolitics on April 5th, 2007 | No Comments »
Having all but placed the Christian adoption agency matter to bed, after it was pointed out that they receive government funding and thus are required to follow the equal opportunities criteria set out by government, I am faced with a quandary.
Mosques in this country receive substantial government grants as part of a broader scheme [...]
Filed under: culture, gender, religion, ukpolitics on March 5th, 2007 | 16 Comments »
While listening to Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast as I ate my breakfast this morning I heard about an interesting piece featuring in the New Yorker this week (and, much as I love reading the New Yorker because I think it makes me look intellectual, it was interesting for another reason entirely) and immediately went to [...]
Filed under: crime, culture, iraq, society, uspolitics on February 18th, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Clearly the bird flu story has far-reaching implications for all of us. But I’ve noticed that whenever I talk about it with anyone, a lot of the conversation seems to focus on the fact that it’s Bernard Matthews (a nice link for you where all your questions about how bird flu might affect your Turkey [...]
Filed under: culture, society, ukpolitics on February 5th, 2007 | 5 Comments »
