Category: Politics
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Facebook and Cambridge Analytica
I’ve been following the stories surrounding Cambridge Analytica and Facebook for some months now, and in recent days, following stories from The Observer, The New York Times and Channel 4, the story has really blown up. However, I do think that the story, while completely valid, and asking some really critical questions, perhaps over emphasises…
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Things Annoying Me Right Now
People labelling their Tweets “Breaking” before highlighting a story they believe is more important than others. People you generally respect getting so annoyed that a news organisation doesn’t reflect their personal choices, that the news organisation is suddenly worthless. Left-leaning British commentators weighing in pointlessly against right-leaning US gun advocates on Twitter. It’s not that…
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What Does “Digital” Mean?
The OED defines “digital” in five key ways, but the key definition that interests us here is as follows: Digital technology; digital media, as digital television, digital audio, etc. Basically, nearly everything these days is digital. Even if it ends up in analogue form like AM or FM radio, it almost certainly originates digitally. Text…
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Vote Tellers
If you’re British and live in the UK, you will hopefully be voting today. Indeed you may have already done so! My constituency is considered marginal – it could go one of two ways. And marginals are key to any election win, so parties target them. As I went into my Polling Station this morning,…
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A Few Thoughts on the Ransomware Attacks
I’ve found a certain amount of the coverage surrounding the WannaCrypt ransomware attack really quite annoying, and the responses in many cases quite pathetic. So here are a few thoughts of my own: The NSA, and other governmental bodies, have an awful lot to answer for. Governments love to collect operating system ‘exploits’ to use…
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EU Referendum: Immediate Post Mortem Thoughts
Cameron has to take a massive amount of blame for all of this. He probably didn’t think he was going to win the last General Election, and therefore including something in his manifesto to keep UKIP at bay was probably just a sop to them. But he won unexpectedly and so felt he had to…
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John Oliver on Brexit
On Sunday night, HBO in the US aired a new episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. The second half of the show was a long explanation/opinion piece from Oliver about what Brexit is (this is a show aimed at Americans after all), and was essentially a 15 minute piece imploring Britain to Vote…
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The EU Referendum
Clearly these are my personal views. Now read on… We’re now just under two weeks out from probably the most important vote I’ve had in my lifetime – far more important than any single General Election. We can change a Government after five years (or sooner). The effects of this vote last a lifetime. But…
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Predicting Every Fixture at Euro 2016
In a frankly bizarre move, the Vote Leave campaign has offered a £50m prize to anyone who can predict the result of every fixture at the upcoming Euro 2016 tournament. Now, I’m not quite sure what the purpose of this is in terms of politics, although the referendum takes place during the tournament. I’m told…
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Satire, Parliament and Dennis Skinner
Last week Labour stalwart Dennis Skinner was ejected from the House of Commons for the rest of the Parliamentary day for calling the Prime Minister “Dodgy Dave” during his statement on his father’s off-shore affairs to Parliament. The Speaker, John Bercow, didn’t like it, and Skinner was forced to leave. Skinner regularly entertains with his…
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Responding to Consultations
If there’s one thing the internet has made easier, it’s responding to consultations. Previously the domain of just the time rich, today it can be much easier. Indeed, only a small amount harder than signing some internet petition. This week I’ve responded to two consultations on wildly differing topics, and I thought I’d repost what…