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This week we discuss anything but the general election. Starting with an update on the state of democracy in Hong Kong, we take a look at the Daily Mail group’s purchase of the i, and finish with a discussion of Hungary’s exodus from Eurovision.
Joining us is Jimmy sounding like he’s very far away from the mic.
It has been said that both atheists and theists can look into the universe and be reassured about their beliefs. Even in our small corner there is an endless array of beauty, elegance and complexity, as well as ugliness, disorder and decay. You can see divine order or directionless chaos.
Now is not the time to re-litigate The God Delusion, but I was reminded of our well-developed confirmation bias by the tussle over Jeremy Corbyn’s pronunciation of Epstein, which he said as “Epshtine” during the general election debate on ITV this week.
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This week we discuss the snappy general election, covering the cadre of blowhards trying to be prime minister, the jostling of the remain and leave alliances, and our predictions on who will win this most welcome of contests.
Joining us are our increasingly shaky gut feelings.
It is a dread of conference-goers everywhere to see an audience member grasp the microphone during the interactive section, only to announce their contribution “is more a comment than a question” before rambling at a tangent for five painful minutes.
The Battle of Ideas, a political ideas conference held in the Barbican arts centre in central London at the start of November, is rare in tolerating such behaviour, which would be swatted away by stricter organisers. But in allowing for this the event crudely tracks the descent of British public discourse, where the quantity of debate is imperilling the quality.
Continue reading →It is seemingly a time of stark lines in British politics. Talk of division is rampant, fed by the obvious leave-remain binary, as well as the divides between factions touting distinct resolutions to Brexit. There is a great deal of zero-sum thinking, and an absence of loser’s consent.
The general election should be more conflicted. But that has not stopped the Jewish Chronicle, and those of the same mind, discouraging people from voting Labour over the singular issue of antisemitism, for which the party is under investigation by the equalities commission.
I’ve no wish to litigate the allegations either way here, but let’s assume they are true. Does it mean that voting Labour is unethical, purely due to one policy?
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