CLARK HOGAN-TAYLOR

Celebrities and politics make for a depressing cocktail

19th April 2010 | 6 comments | 6 people like this

I was going to post this last week and it's now slightly past its read-by date, but I was deafened by the cacophony of juvenile hysteria with which the public greeted their discovery that Nick Clegg was not ejected from the 3rd round of last year's Britain's Got Talent but is, in fact, a politician who is not a Tory or Labour. "There's a third party?!", they squeeled, like children...

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The toughest challenge of my life

15th February 2010 | 2 comments | 2 people like this

I had to tell the cleaner not to bother coming in this morning. Nobody should have to face the consequences of me having to watch 'Piers Morgan's Life Stories' other than myself. Altruism aside, I'm fairly sure some kind of human rights breach would have taken place the moment I asked her to deal with the broken glass/blood/toilet 'problem'.

For those of you who, like me, were unable to find ITV in...

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The wobbly politics of the far left

25th January 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

A wobbly table appeared outside King’s college last week. Behind it was a woman and front of it was a man. The man was shouting things whilst holding a megaphone by his side. The table wobbled as he shouted, leaflets fell. Everyone walked by, bemused or unaffected. I was not one of them though, because, as usual, their sign caught my eye. “BASH THE FAR RIGHT BNP”, it suggested. It...

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The politics of parody

25th January 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

The same argument comes round every time there is an impending general election. The posters, slogans and well rehearsed soundbites are all revealed, and the loudest voices generally condemn them all as naff, shallow, ineffective or worse, counter-effective. They are evidence of an absence of real policy, substance and furthermore, why are they spending all this money on aggressive brand-politics when the country is flat-broke (that argument’s newer than the...

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Alan Duncan’s irrational behaviour

13th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

So Alan Duncan has put his foot in it again. What to do with a politician who gets caught speaking his mind? There are several issues being vacuum-packed into one in the representations this story is receiving across various media. Duncan defenders have pounced on the argument that Heydon Prowse's behaviour was ungentlemanly because he was invited for a drink in Westminster by Duncan and used the opportunity to secretly record him. "What kind...

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How to beat the BNP

10th June 2009 | 3 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

The news that the British National Party won two seats in the European Parliament following last Thursday's elections has been greeted with the usual soundbite-driven hysteria. Nick Clegg, David Cameron, Harriet Harman etc waded into the compulsory game of tough-talking politicians have to play on occasions such as this. The person who sounds most outraged and "sickened" wins; nobody sees it as helpful or relevant but they feel they've done...

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If You (Don’t) Go Down To The Polls Today

4th June 2009 | 1 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Be in no doubt, things are a little unusual at the moment. It’s difficult to know where to look for any semblance of normality, but then why would you want to do that? There is too much fun to be had gawping at the news fallout from the implosion of politics, and more recently the plastic knife backstabbings of what has become a pretty thundery Cabinet picnic. The small matter...

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