Tag: Politics
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The Cloud of All-Knowing | Democracy and Demagogues in the Age of Data
“True power is not the strength to force someone into slavery, but to make them happily lock their own manacles, as if chains were adding to their liberty.” Yesterday The Observer published a long and detailed piece that attempted to join (some of) the dots between the ‘big data’ socio-political technology firm Cambridge Analytica, and…
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Dear Scotland…
I’ve kept pretty quiet with all this talk of independence, partly because I’ve somehow felt that I didn’t have a valid voice in the debate. But the last couple of days, as the arguments have become more intense and the feelings raised even higher, I’ve decided that that’s nonsense. I could say that I have…
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Lament at Pentecost, the Benefits of Drink and the Scourge of Technology
Was invited to debate with Steve Chalke last night on the topic of ‘the Politics of Pentecost’ – which was designed to think about issues of multiculturalism and inclusion over the Pentecost festival. Steve gave a very interesting opening talk about this, which we then argued over afterwards, drawing in questions from the floor too.…
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“If You Want a Nigger for a Neighbour…” | St George | Economic Racism
Interesting piece on the Today programme this morning, re-visiting the constituency of Smethwick – a safe seat in which was notoriously won by the vile Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths in 1964 following his campaign which ran under the slogan ‘If You Want A Nigger For A Neighbour, Vote Labour.” Smethwick reacted to chuck out the…
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Why #Education Isn’t Educating | Teaching, Not Socialisation
I don’t mention a great deal here about my work as a teacher in London, but a book review in The Observer this weekend made me want to post something. The thrust of Frank Furedi’s book Why Education Isn’t Educating is well caught in a paragraph in the review, in which Rafael Behr notes: There…