Opinion
File sharing is no different from Jimmy Carr’s clever accounting
At some point during the last 10 years or so, the idea that everything that can be taken for free has become widely accepted. The most intriguing thing about the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal was not the relaxed set of regulations governing the expenses process, but rather the widespread assumption by MPs that if it was possible to put in a claim for something it would be fit and proper to do so – the morality of the claim itself being a moot point.
By James Bloodworth | Arts, Notebook, Opinion | Wednesday, 27 June 2012 at 2:00 am
85 years of coverage: We should be proud of the BBC
Six years ago, the BBC ran an extensive campaign to promote its brand. Unlike those of other broadcasters, the budget of this project wasn’t blown on paying C-list celebrities to stand in front of a camera and beg viewers to watch programmes.
By Callum Jones | Arts, Notebook, Opinion | Tuesday, 26 June 2012 at 11:36 am
Sex in the same bed as a sleeping baby is far from child abuse
The Daily Mail have printed yet another horror story. This time it involves sex, parents and children too. Any headline containing these three subjects might sound sinister, but this one is not. “A third of Swedish mothers admit to having sex while their babies are in the SAME bed” read the headline.
By Grace Jacobson | Notebook, Opinion | Tuesday, 26 June 2012 at 10:25 am
Not another Live Aid
Next year will be crucial for the UK’s international development policy. With the UK in the G8 chair and David Cameron co-chairing a UN committee that will oversee the setting of new global development goals, the UK once again has an opportunity to shape international action against poverty.
By Sarah Mulley | Notebook, Opinion | Tuesday, 26 June 2012 at 12:00 am
It isn’t right-wing to expect a decent education for the poor
After plans to scrap the GCSE were leaked to the Daily Mail last week, I tweeted: “Can anyone anywhere tell me why it’s massively right wing to believe in an academically rigorous education for the poorest students? #Gove”.
By Amol Rajan | Notebook, Opinion | Tuesday, 26 June 2012 at 12:00 am
Young people are sick of being pushed around
There is a story retold by historian, Robert Darnton, about a series of ritualistic murders of cats in the printers’ district of pre-revolutionary Paris that shocked and horrified its residents. It turned out that the cats were killed by the apprentices as revenge for the ill treatment, low pay and little chance of career advancement at the hands of their masters and their masters’ wives.
By Caroline Mortimer | Notebook, Opinion | Monday, 25 June 2012 at 3:05 pm
What the story of the ATM teaches us about innovation
45 years ago this week, an innovation which brought the British banking industry into the modern age was installed in Enfield, north London – the cash machine. Truly innovative for its time, the ATM was the brainchild of one man, John Shepherd-Barron, after a brainwave when noticing how technology behind vending machines could be applied to banking.
By Stephen Caddick | Notebook, Opinion, Science & Technology | Monday, 25 June 2012 at 12:38 pm
Twitter advertising: Celebrities are not online estate agents
As disgusting as it is to say this, in our ‘consumer capitalist’ society, advertising is everywhere. And so often the job falls to those most recognisable.
By Josh Barrie | Notebook, Opinion | Monday, 25 June 2012 at 3:00 am
Bullingdon Club: The politics of Posh
In the first of a series of blogs this week looking at the politics of class, Alastair Campbell discusses Laura Wade’s Posh. The play, which, if any comparisons with the notoriously elite Bullingdon Club are drawn (of which Conservative trio David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson were all members) opens a more disturbing concern than our political leaders not knowing the price of milk. Last year the Prime Minister denied that there were similarities between the club he was famously a member of, and the destructive behaviour witnessed in the summer riots.
By Alastair Campbell | Eagle Eye, Notebook, Opinion | Monday, 25 June 2012 at 12:40 am
Note to refugees from South Sudan: Israel is for the white man
These were the astonishing words uttered by Israel’s interior minister Eli Yishai in an interview recently in which he outlined the Israeli government’s view of African migrants.
By Richard Sudan | Notebook, Opinion | Friday, 22 June 2012 at 7:19 pm
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