I'm not sure Boris would approve: (photographed by me at Kings Cross St Pancras station, 14/5/08 at 2215) Update 19/5 - Veroniq has come up with a much better headline: "And the London Underground is not a political movement"
Author: John B
John Band is a London-raised, Sydney-based strategy consultant, data analyst and writer. He has experience ranging from blue chips to start-ups across the media, business information, strategy and technology consulting industries.
You'll be delighted to hear that The Sharpener is back online and that I have a new post there on why it's right to treat politics as a trivial and irrelevant sideshow. Also, now that the Sharpener is back up, I'm going to try and get back into the habit of putting my political stuff … Continue reading Good news, everybody
A comment on this Guardian thread, about the prospect of extending the insane Tube drinking ban to - even more insanely - cover all public transport expresses confusion over why this is a problem: "I haven't lived in the UK for some time but where I live in Europe I frequently see people drinking in … Continue reading On antisocial behaviour
Two possibilities: 1) you believe that people should go to jail and be registered as sex offenders for owning pictures of consensual bondage; or: 2) you should sign this petition.
It ought to be pretty obvious that banning drinking in a place is completely different from banning drunken louts from a place. If you ban drinking in a place, it prevents people who aren’t louts but fancy a beer from having one, while doing absolutely nothing to prevent louts who are drunk from causing a … Continue reading If we ban harmless things, then harmful things will magically disappear
A non-Londoner asked me on Saturday what I thought Boris Johnson would be like as London mayor. I said that I really didn't know, which was the main reason I hadn't voted for him (I also can't stand his Wooster-ish public persona, but I'm quite happy to vote for someone I don't personally like if … Continue reading How big is Boris’s tent?
Justin is looking for constructive suggestions on what Labour could possibly do to get over their steamrollering. Mine include: 1) keep the 21% basic tax rate; abolish tax credits; and use the money saved by abolishing the 10p band to raise the personal allowance; 2) abolish NI and raise the basic and higher tax rates … Continue reading 100% hindsight, 100% of the time
Simon Jenkins: No good is served by incarcerating an illiterate drugs "mule" in Holloway for 14 years for a first offence when she had no clue what she was doing and has left four children on the streets of Jamaica. She will be sent back in seven years, after Britain has spent £250,000 turning her … Continue reading If you disagree with this, you have no soul and no brain
Diamond Geezer's coverage of the mayoral race has been entirely on fire. The latest, possibly last, and definitely funniest summary of the campaign I've so far seen, is the London Mayoral Hustings 2012: Paxman: Ahhhhh yes, transport. What are your priorities for the next four years? Boris: Crossrail, yes, er, that's something I'd really like … Continue reading Final mayoralty
If you think that Gordon Brown carried out a tax raid on pensions in 1997, which was the main cause of the end of final-salary pension schemes in the UK private sector, then you are wrong. In 1997, the government did indeed abolish the tax relief on dividends paid by firms into pension funds. But … Continue reading More clarifications of the obvious