On the first of November 2018, Brexit Britain was still in talks with the European Union over negotiating the terms of the Irish backstop when The Times Newspaper reported that the UK and the EU had sealed a deal on financial services.
The EU’s top negotiator, Michel Barnier, picked up The Times and began ranting to his secretaries about the cluelessness of the British press.
A writer sentenced to jail once said that a good newspaper, he supposed, is a nation talking to itself. A good local paper, it follows, must be a city, town or village talking to itself. That conversation has now been interrupted. Over the last 15 years more than half the jobs in the news industry have disappeared, [1] with over 40 UK local papers closing down last year alone. [2] What’s left of institutional journalism is faced with many preoccupations: how to cover uncorroborated accusations, whether to add to the hysteria over child disappearances, how many times should Nigel Farage be allowed on Question Time? Etc.
How familiar is the name Deng Xiaoping to most Westerners today? Most people you could ask on the street would probably never have heard of him. Sadly many more would be familiar with his old party comrade, Mao Zedong. China today arguably owes a lot more to the former than the latter. When Mao died in 1976 shortly after his historic meeting with Richard Nixon, he left behind a country where 80% of the country made less than $40 per year, and where the level of state repression can only be matched today by North Korea. Modern China is the largest global economy, and a world leader in agriculture, transport, and telecommunications, something that can be credited almost entirely to Deng Xiaoping’s legacy.
After handing my phone to a prison official I am led through the labyrinthine corridors of HMP Norwich to a courtyard full of prisoners, some of whom I am about to meet. “Morning Miss,” the prisoners in the courtyard wave at the official accompanying me. She smiles at them as though they are her nursery class. Thankfully, I am largely ignored. We come to a waiting room with a brochure advertising the role of prison officer at Norwich HMP, which I grab from the table.
RECRUITING NOW: Interested in becoming a Prison Officer at HMP Norwich?
Salary: £20,961
Not a bad offer. I might be tempted if I didn’t know that so far this year there were
In Portugal at twenty past midnight on the 24th of April, 1974, a popular marching song called Grandola, Vila Morena started playing on radio stations all across the country. The song was banned by the military junta that had controlled Portugal since the 1930s because of its Communist overtones. Playing it on public radio was enough to get the broadcasters imprisoned or even killed.
What anyone listening would soon discover was that the song was actually a signal to the Portuguese military to march on Lisbon, and occupy the airport, Police stations, and town halls. This was a military coup with the aim of forcing Marcelo Caetano from power.
