‘Nature abhors a vacuum’ may be an entry level scientific theory, but it is one that communications professionals should bear in mind at all times. And it is one the Royals have proved to be indisputably true over recent weeks. From the Princess of Wales’s surgery to the King’s cancer to the tragic death of […]
Two Saturdays ago, I awoke to news of Israelis being slaughtered. Young Jewish lives wiped out a music festival. Holocaust survivors living out their last days murdered in their own homes as Hamas did what the Nazis couldn’t. Babies and children taken hostage in underground tunnels in Gaza. This Saturday, I was inundated with images […]
The Lionesses have kicked off their World Cup campaign with a victory – albeit somewhat laboured – over Haiti. The tournament, being held in Australia and New Zealand, features more teams and better known players than ever before – and ticket sales Down Under have gone through the roof. It’s a huge moment for the women’s […]
With Labour typically gripped by infighting post-General Election catastrophe, the Lib Dems’ own electoral wipe out has rather been forgotten. The party entered the December 12 poll with 20 MPs, depending on how you count defections and so forth. They now have 11. Leader Jo Swinson lost her seat. The party did garner over 3.67 […]
Party conferences are, by definition, odd affairs. No normal person chooses to spend hundreds of pounds to pass days in a seaside conference centre hearing from MPs and discussing the minutiae of party policy. Oddity levels are particularly high in the case of the Liberal Democrats. But the sandaled party faithful who gathered in Bournemouth […]
The TIGgers bounded into British politics with the promise of doing things differently. Clowns to the left of them, jokers to the right, and all that. As a liberal centrist who is thoroughly dispirited by the current state of politics I was excited, particularly when the former Labour members were boosted by three Tory defectors. […]
These are turbulent times in Silicon Valley. Tech giants such as Google and Amazon are facing staff protests over the way they’ve handled issues like sexual harassment. In the stock market, those same firms are taking a bit of a beating. On Tuesday, Apple shares took yet another dive — prices are 20 per cent […]
As soldiers in a war of words go, the head of the UK Statistics Authority might seem an unlikely candidate. But earlier this week Sir David Norgrove came out swinging over the cavalier use of figures by Education Secretary Damian Hinds. Sir David wrote: “I am writing to raise with you serious concerns about the Department for […]
The other day I went on television to discuss the former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ condemnation of Jeremy Corbyn. The stampede did not take long. Almost as soon as I came off-air my Twitter mentions were full of full of hard-left activists and Corbyn acolytes telling me how stupid I am, how awful my […]
Anti-Semitism is, in many ways, the original fake news. Centuries before the Nazis used anti-Semitic propaganda to such horrific effect, the Bubonic plague, no less, was blamed on the Jews. Later, in 1545, Martin Luther published a pamphlet called “The Jews and their Lies” which described Jews as “base, whoring people, that is, no people […]
Writing for CapX last week, Sam Dumitriu contended: “Fake news has all the signs of being a moral panic rather than a real problem.” Now, there can be little doubt that the media is fond of writing about itself, and are notoriously inward looking. And so Sam is right to say that there is something […]
Jeremy Corbyn has carefully cultivated his persona as a cuddly Left-wing pensioner who has unexpectedly been called upon by the people to lead the revolution, when he would much rather be pottering in his allotment. Well, yesterday, that mask slipped. Reacting to ongoing stories about meetings with a Czech spy, Corbyn warned the press that […]
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman declared that “we are living in an era of fake news and competing narratives” and announced that in response the British government would launch a “dedicated national security communications unit” that will have the task of “combating disinformation by state actors and others”. As someone looking into fake news for an […]
“Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” That line from Otto von Bismark has been repeated to the point of cliché, but it rarely hast it felt more relevant than in the past few months – and the last few days in particular. Von Bismark lived in the 19th […]
You’ve got to be pretty hardy to have attended the Lib Dems’ conference in Brighton this week. While the party can proudly point to some genuine success in council by-elections, it is a paltry force in Parliament, gets consistently pulverised in national polls, and (for the second time in the space of a few years) […]
Donald Trump has not had the friendliest relationship with the media: he has repeatedly blacklisted publications whose reporting he objects to, and has promised to reform America’s libel laws to make it easier for people to sue over negative stories. But this hostility to the press is not confined to the candidate himself. Trump’s wife […]
My name is Charlotte Henry, and I’m addicted to the Olympics. Night after night I’ve sat on my sofa at home gripped by the action from Rio. This addiction reached its peak in the last few days, when I insisted on getting back from a dinner with my family in time to watch 4 minutes […]
Last week, the former Lib Dem leader Lord Paddy Ashdown announced a new online political movement he was helping launch, called MoreUnited. Founded by a variety of former Lib Dem staffers and political celebs, MoreUnited wants to adopt the mentality of a tech startup, and is based around crowdfunding and online decision making. It aims […]
“Got it” a friend declared across the bar on Saturday night. He was not referring to acquiring me an Old Fashioned from the bar, sadly, but instead a small animated creature found in amongst the glasses and remnants of cocktails that he had “caught” on his phone. “That’s the biggest one yet,” he declared proudly. […]
Losing is rubbish. Trust me, I know. I have stood for election for the Liberal Democrats and support Tottenham Hotspur. I was also a Remain voter, and losing the referendum last week felt particularly bad. Awful in fact. I think the sense of defeat last Friday morning was so profound because, unlike General Elections, after […]
