A week is a long time in politics.
This seems all the more true when the same lines keep popping up time and time again, whether it be through the mouths of politicians, political pundits or the general public themselves.
Often these throwaway lines are easy to remember and digestible, but lack any real substance.
But more than anything, I find them irritating and would gladly banish them to Room 101 (Remember that show?)
So here are my four picks for cliched utterances that need retiring from British political discourse. Forever.
In no particular order…
‘Mood of the Nation’
This…
It’s time to retire the over-used references to Orwell and Rowling in our political discourse
In these ‘unprecedented times’ (sick of hearing that phrase, yet?), people cling to popular culture to establish some sense of perspective. What better way is there to understand the world than through the lens of fiction — after all — the truth is often stranger than fiction.
But I must confess to having a bit of a bed-bug about this way of thinking, as I personally feel it’s given rise to lazy ways of thinking. So which books are often cited to draw comparisons between real-world events and works of fiction?
The Harry Potter Series
This has mercifully fallen from the graces of the…
Russell T. Davies, best known as the creator of Queer As Folk, has recently stirred up a lot of controversy by saying that straight actors should not be cast to play gay characters.
Davies made these comments whilst speaking to the Radio Times about his new show It’s a Sin, which follows a group of gay men living through the HIV epidemic in the 1980's.
As children grow into being adults, a rebellious phase is often part of that process. And for somebody who grows up in Catholicism, the ‘rebellion’ seems fairly obvious- become a full-blown atheist.
I certainly hadn’t become a atheist as a conscious way of rebelling. My parents aren’t religious, so they didn’t care. My schools were Catholic, but they weren’t the type you see in films where Nuns smack pupils’ wrists with rulers.
Before going further, I should stress that this isn’t going to be a ‘I found God’ blog. …
After years of exclusively reading non-fiction, fiction now feels more appealing
Like a lot of people, I was an enthusiastic reader as a child. I would steamroll my way through various book series, from Asterix to A Series Of Unfortunate Of Events.
Sadly, my passion for reading dwindled somewhat during my years in high school. Upon reflection, I reckon this was probably the internet’s doing. During those early teen years, I spent an inordinate amount of time on social media, and reading fell to the wayside.
But around two years ago, I started becoming a regular reader again. …
Keir Starmer, the current Labour leader, seems like a generally decent man. Although my interest in British politics has taken a very deep dip during 2020, I have followed along, and I can’t say he’s done anything too disagreeable for me.
If you were to ask some of the ardent backers of his predecessor, it’d be a different story of course.
Many of the Labour Party’s left are convinced Starmer is a ‘red tory’ or another Tony Blair. I’m not a member of the Party, so it’s certainly not my place to wade into the intra-party squabble.
But I couldn’t…
‘Rocketman’ (2019) and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (2018) are remarkably similar films in many ways. Both focus around gay icons — Elton John and Freddie Mercury respectively — who were at their musical prime in the 1970s and 1980s and both play out with bombastic musical numbers.
But one similarity that I haven’t seen a lot of media outlets acknowledge is how both films documented the protagonists’ hedonistic lifestyles. At their most indulgent, John and Mercury were living out the ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll’ lifestyle.
The ultimate paths these two men ended up on could not be more different however…
