China’s Media Empire

It has become increasingly clear that communist China is a world-spanning empire-in-waiting. More than this, its leaders are increasingly unwilling to wait.

Resignationism

There is an unfortunate trend in Britain’s politics which has coagulated into a rhetorical device – the latter used so often that it has congealed into reflex. It’s behind a few unfortunate recent cases, each of which have, in their own way, served to confuse, and to excite anger at precisely the most bottled-up and contorted moment of my life time.

Between Two Stools

Four weeks ago, I was wide-eyed and crazy. I was accused by people who try to love me of isolating myself from society for no good reason, emerging periodically to talk in overexcited terms about this virus from China, and the duplicity of the Chinese state, and to be making entirely outlandish predictions about death tolls and the necessity of preparation for what was about to come.

The Culturally Rich Get Richer

Allow for a moment this flash of irritation. It does have the ghost of a point.

Why can the success of others arouse such annoyance?

An Embarrassment of Riches

Review – This Is Not Propaganda by Peter Pomerantsev

We live in a golden age not of fact, but of fiction. The possibilities of new media have led to an embarrassment of riches. Where once there was a lack of information, there is now overabundance, with half of the world’s population possessing access to the internet, and the sum of human knowledge accessible from a device most in the rich world carry in their pockets, and replace for an almost trivial sum when its screen gets scratched.

The Syrian Regime Still Has No Qualms About Attacking Journalists

Journalists and fixers associated with Britain’s Sky News recently came under fire in Syria. This was not an accident nor was it brief, as video recorded by the crew as they scrambled to escape injury and death attests. No one was killed, but an activist travelling with the party was injured by shrapnel.

Shamima Begum’s Media Circus

When, four years ago and at the age of fifteen, Shamima Begum first left her family and her country to join a group of religiously-inspired murderers in the Levant, I doubt she expected that her future life would include so many TV interviews.

So Long, Farewell: The Weekly Standard

Adieu, then, to the Weekly Standard, which is to close.

Present Tense

Review – 21 Lessons for the 21^st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

The success of Yuval Noah Harari’s first book, Sapiens, a sweeping assessment of human history, was so great that its author has been granted a status far beyond that normally afforded to professors of global history.

The Anti-Semitism Row Shows Corbyn Is Untouchable

The long-standing row over alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour party continues to rumble on. This weekend deputy leader Tom Watson spoke out and was quickly the subject of an online campaign from Corbynistas calling for him to resign.  Today we have a member of Labour’s National Policy Forum, George McManus, suspended over a Facebook post comparing Watson to Judas because he took money from ‘Jewish donors’.