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Hope a little... I dare you

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THREE weeks ago it looked inevitable that far-right strongman Flavio Bolsonaro was on course to take power in Brazil. Back in 2022 his father had lost a knife-edge election to leftist veteran Lula and attempted to orchestrate a violent uprising to prevent the transfer of power (sounds familiar). And when Bolsonaro Jr topped the polls in the first round of this month's Presidential contest, it seemed certain that he would win the second ballot and restart his dad's agenda of attacking democratic freedoms, persecuting minorities and cutting through swathes of the Amazon. Progressives had plenty of reasons to feel pessimistic; not since the return of Brazilian democracy some 40 years ago had a candidate defeated in the first round gone on to win the run-off. Lula's road to re-election would not only have to reverse a polling deficit of a few million voters but overcome a formidable coalition of oil barons, betting companies and oligarchs irked by his policies. Worse still ther...
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Make Racism Wrong Again

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REFORM UK's newly elected councillors include a man who called for migrants to be murdered at sea, a bona fide Holocaust denier and, in my own backyard, a bloke who backed the wholesale closure of mosques. Not for decades has a major UK party, one possibly on course to form a government, allowed such virulent racism in its ranks. Many argue that Reform's rapid rise - two years ago they won just two seats, yesterday some 1,500 - has been fuelled by opponents unwilling to get to grips with concerns about immigration. That a conspiracy of silence is breeding resentment. In reality who amongst our movers and shakers isn't in almost constant dialogue about the need to curb arrivals? Certainly not newspapers, who splash on the subject almost weekly. One study a few years ago ago found the Mail and Express alone had printed more than 300 anti-immigration front pages in just five years. Online meanwhile the bar for tech companies to remove offensive comments rises by the day. Nor i...
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Farage wants to tell England's story. He won't like it.

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"I shall not weary you by repeating the tale of how public opinion has changed during those twenty-one years. But, as an example, I may recall the fact that in those days, and for many years thereafter, it was tenaciously upheld by the public authorities, here and elsewhere, that it was an offence against laws of nature and ruinous to the State for public authorities to provide food for starving children, or independent aid for the aged poor. Even safety regulations in mines and factories were taboo. They interfered with the ‘freedom of the individual’. As for such proposals as an eight-hour day, a minimum wage, the right to work, and municipal houses, any serious mention of such classed a man as a fool." --- Keir Hardie, April 1914 THE far-right often speak about our history as a whole treasure box of things that prove them right. It is no surprise that ahead of St George's Day, Nigel Farage has said he wants a curriculum in schools that instills a sense of pride in our ...
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The Green Party exists and has done for a while

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IT was almost 20 years ago, at my first local election count, when I found myself interviewing the chap who'd helped get the Greens their first elected councillor in the West Midlands. Chris Williams, now the party's national head of elections, has just done in a Westminster seat what the Solihull branch managed in the late noughties - snatching a previous Labour stronghold. The party's surprise success in North Solihull came at a time when the area's council estates were seen to be flirting with the far-right. While the Labour Party had managed to claw back Chelmsley Wood from the BNP (who bagged a win in 2007) it was the Greens who, a few years later, had turned a white working class ward into the party's safest seat in the UK. The early gains in the sort of deprived neighbourhoods that are, nationally, now seen as ripe for Reform were soon matched by successes in traditionally Tory suburbs, albeit the party was mostly soaking up votes and personnel from the then ...
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Fight like hell... for the BBC

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ON a freezing cold February day almost eight years ago I paid my first visit to the BBC's local HQ. The reception impressed, not least because they had an honest to god Cyberman head encased in glass. "The stuff of nightmares, reduced to an exhibit," I thought to myself, instantly regretting that too few people in the regional press - or probably reading this blog - were conversant in Doctor Who references. Even then, just a few days into my new journalism job, I was vaguely aware this would likely be my last hoorah. I was scarcely 30, but my trade was almost unrecognisable from just a decade earlier. The local news had already succumbed to the thinking that people didn't much like local news actually (think greengrocers getting cold feet about cucumbers) In this new age what the readers really wanted was potted summaries of whatever Piers Morgan had grumbled about on Good Morning Britain . Or Greggs product launches. They fucking loved them. The sudden enthusiasm for...
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Good Stuff Post: End of October edition

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Second one of these, only four weeks or so late. Ah well. Was pretty chuffed to get into double-figures for views on my first outing - roughly equivalent to the long-reads I used to produce on the climate crisis. NOW WATCHING (TV): How Are You? It's Alan Partridge A few years ago Partridge had once again returned to the dizzy heights of prime-time presenting, as co-host of spoof magazine show This Time . After a perhaps inevitable on-screen meltdown, the Norfolk broadcaster is once again scraping a living in this latest series - perhaps his funniest since the I'm Alan Partridge heyday. Nominally a self-funded documentary on mental health, we're also offered glimpses of Partridge's crumbling personal life. His horrid girlfriend is clearly having an affair, while the man himself grubs up money filming Cameo greetings and presenting gigs on Saudi Arabian radio. There is some comfort to be taken from the fact that, in TV comedy at least, those selling themselves to the lo...
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If we can't agree to save the planet what can we agree on?

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IN Solihull just six years ago the Conservative-run council passed a motion to declare a climate emergency. The then leader of the local authority applauded the consensus the chamber had come to, with all parties present having voted in favour. In a direct swipe at the suggestion that the UK needn't fret about its comparatively lowly contribution to global emissions, he insisted  "we all have a responsibility to take action." The borough's environmentalists were, as it turned out, lucky to have a Green Party in opposition and a green party in power. One was probably fonder of lentils than the other, but there was enough agreement to get on with. In partnership with the region's Tory Mayor, another strong supporter of net zero, the council set about various schemes to cut pollution. A district heat network, to provide low-carbon electricity to key buildings around the town centre, started construction. Electric car charging started to arrive alongside parking bays....
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