Why do we like TV murder mysteries so much? In England we have banned fox hunting on the grounds that it is death-based entertainment (in relation to the fox – nobody minds about the occasional hunter parting company with his or her horse). Yet every day millions of TV viewers derive pleasure from seeing, sometimes […]
There is an interesting argument about ‘bullshit jobs’ that is likely to echo around for years and years. Alas, like a lot of interesting arguments it depends on misinformation and misunderstanding, but it does touch on some important questions. In its original form it was put forward by Professor David Graeber of the London School of […]
In real life, murder is a hum drum squalid crime of violence. As depicted in UK TV drama, it is sometimes of the Scandinavian noir variety – that is squalid but not hum drum – or more usually it happens in a rustic middle class la-la land where the houses are straight out of Country […]
What are political parties for? You may have your own ideas about that. However, the official answer is that they came into existence alongside mass democracy, to identify and support candidates in elections, to mobilise voters to vote for them and to formulate policies around which candidates and voters can coalesce. If so, they are […]
When I was at prep school a long time ago, if you were clever (which I was not) you could be clever in two different ways. Either you were good at Maths or you were good at Latin – you could not be good at both. If you were very good at Maths, you were […]
I have never met Mr Davis, the new Minister for Brexit, nor is it remotely likely that he or his Department should want, let alone ask, for my help. However, in these uncertain times, it is my patriotic duty to offer it anyway. DRAFT From: The Right Hon David Davis PC MP MBA MsC, Secretary […]
Do you know who your MEP is? That is a trick question. You will have between three and ten MPs depending on where you live. MEPs are elected by party list on a proportional representation basis, for enormous constituencies – there are twelve, jumbo EU constituencies in the UK, as compared with 650 for our […]
Letter published in the Shepton Mallet Journal on 25th May 2016 Dear Sir, A way through the referendum debate I suspect your readers are fed up with all the arguments about Europe (both in your Opinion column and elsewhere). Can I offer a simple, non-party-political, statistics-free way through? Everybody agrees that, in or out of […]
Jan Karpinski 