Category: Hell in a handcart

  • To protect the NHS, stay home (at elections)

    This is doing the rounds on social media right now. It’s funny, but like the best political jokes it has sharp teeth. How many of the people standing outside clapping for the NHS on a Thursday evening voted for a party that’s stripped the NHS bare, refused to pay staff properly, refused to consider its…

  • 5G, Coronavirus and clickbait

    The mainstream media has been quick to point the finger at social media for the conspiracy theory that 5G mobile phone signals spread Coronavirus. But the mainstream media played its part too. Here’s the Daily Star, just before people started arson attacks on mobile phone masts. Coronavirus: Fears 5G wifi networks could be acting as…

  • Don’t blame your neighbours. Blame the government

    The chorus of anger at people supposedly risking everybody’s lives by going to the park is growing louder, especially in the right-wing press; the government is now floating the idea that going outside at all may be banned “if people continue to flout the rules”. Don’t fall for it: it’s a deliberate attempt to bury…

  • “A doctor wearing a Spiderman mask and boxing gloves.”

    Frankie Boyle is the comedian we need in these dark times. 2020 began with Australia on fire and a billion animals dead. It’s sobering to think that will be the feel-good story of the year. He’s writing for The Overtake, a small, independent and excellent publication made by – in their own words – (relatively)…

  • There has never been a better time to use this image

    The image is of a famous Mitchell & Webb sketch in which a Nazi, played by Mitchell, wonders whether they might be the bad guys. PinkNews: Neo-Nazis and homophobes are among those supporting the UK ‘anti-trans’ pressure group the LGB Alliance. …There is nothing to suggest the LGB Alliance has sought or welcomed such supporters,…

  • More important things to worry about

    In my post about transgender day of visibility, I mentioned that some people criticise such awareness days, especially now. Haven’t we got more important things to worry about? And we have, but the problem is that politicians use those bigger things as cover to attack us. An admittedly extreme example of that has just happened…

  • Will Alex Salmond destroy the independence movement?

    If you only read one article about Alex Salmond’s trial and the dark side of the Scottish independence movement, you should read this exceptional piece by Dani Garavelli.  The trial effectively found that Alex Salmond was – in the words of his own lawyer, overheard on a train while the trial was ongoing – “inappropriate”,…

  • Chortling with the cops

    There’s a really nasty tone creeping into the press right now, with tabloids and local press following the police’s lead and giving ordinary people a kicking. We’re not quite at Two Minutes Hate just yet, but the trickle of “look at these stupid bastards” stories is starting to become a stream. A lot of those…

  • Coronavirus isn’t karma

    I wrote the other day about not finding any pleasure in the misfortunes of others, even if those people are horrible. But of course some people do, especially when the people are especially horrible. Take the rapist Harvey Weinstein: news that he had tested positive for coronavirus caused much merriment online and off; I saw…

  • “If people see no path to influencing the powerful, some will kick down”

    Adam Ramsay in OpenDemocracy: In the wake of the Andrew Wakefield scandal and two decades of disastrous climate change denial, newspapers surely have a social responsibility to be calm and cautious when contradicting scientific consensus, not turn serious questions of health communication into flesh for bare-toothed columnists to spar over. Despite continuing to spread confusion…