News

Opinion from Jimmy Pierce Experts will soon gather in Paris for the annual UN Climate Change Conference to discuss how to cut carbon emissions and halt temperature rises, but the principal contributor is likely to be left off the agenda. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption, species extinction, habitat loss, ocean dead zones and pollution, responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all transport in the world combined. Its impact is persistently ignored, wilfully neglected in...

By Callum Towler  I recently re-watched Adam Curtis' seminal BBC documentary series 'The Century Of The Self'  - a provocative analysis of how Sigmund Freud's ideas about our irrational desires first spawned the PR industry in the 1920s, through his calculating nephew Edward Bernays, and later seeped into politics as a potent method of attaining power. If you haven't seen it, you can view the episode in question below. It is a fascinating insight into the volatile relationship between the state...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Today’s PMQs began with a quick guide to consumerism, Susan Elan Jones, Lab, asked why Sunday trading hours shouldn’t be extended: “What about families?” she asked despairingly. The PM robustly replied: “This is about families.” Eh, no Dave, this is about consumer capitalism. He nearly wept when he discussed families who conduct the long march around department stores “for hours,” before they can pay for goods, bivouacking next to the Baskin Robbins concession and swapping...

By Harry Bedford  We all have that friend on Facebook posting motivational quotes and discussing the great benefits of products they are selling, such as Herbalife weight loss milkshakes and Organo Gold coffee. On the face of it, they appear merely passionate about the products and feel a burning desire to inform the rest of us about it. Fair enough. However, if you look past 'the best cup of coffee' they have ever drank and the 'amazing weight loss' they...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  New research has revealed retirees have an average of only £1,343 put away for emergencies. The study on the finances and lifestyles of 1,000 retired people found one in four had less than £1,000 saved and more than half said they would be “stumped” if they had to pay for unexpected house repairs or specialist medical care. Around one in five retired respondents in the poll by financial services giant MetLife said they had less than £500...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor I guess if you failed to get on X factor, Britain’s Got Talent and that naked TV game show with Keith Chegwin, you can always e-mail Jeremy Corbyn for your fifteen minutes of fame, and hope he asks your question out. The lady who was used to present Corbyn’s first question at his maiden PMQs was on Radio 5 live by mid-afternoon the very same day. A moment with Richard Bacon, is never a moment...

There are many industries that have faced dramatic digital disruption and yet still, the changes they are enduring remain only in their infancy. While we are all, for instance, stunned at the growth of Uber and the disruption to the black cab and minicab industry, with driverless cars on the horizon, the disruption has not stopped yet. The media, both in terms of the press and its accompanying publicity/communications industry, has also experienced well-documented change, and while newspaper publishers may...

By Professor Mary Mellor  The Labour U-turn to vote against Osborne’s fiscal charter ‘trap’ is welcome, but it cannot stop there – Labour needs to open up a real debate about public access to money in a modern economy. Osborne’s aim to enshrine in law that States must not run deficits is profoundly undemocratic. It reflects the demand of neoliberal ‘handbag economics’ that the public sector cannot and should not ‘create money’ by running a deficit. This denial of the right...

By Callum Towler  At rallies, protests, even among friends, I hear two phrases frequently levelled at Conservatives: the ‘Evil Tories!’ or those ‘Tory Scum!’ Such mud-slinging has long been attached to a faction of left-wing activism bitterly opposed to Conservatism. Unbridled from the restraints of coalition, we now see our government’s true ambition unfold. And the degree of malevolence - in policies like the scrapping of tax credits - is striking. Put it this way: if The Sun, Britain’s most...