Politics

By Elsa Buchanan, International Politics reporter How a Brazilian sporting event company went from being FIFA’s darling to its backbiter They had hired men dressed as Amazon trees, indigenous canoes and R&B singer Jennifer Lopez. On the night of the 12 June, excitement must have reached fever pitch at Team Spirit, the go-to company responsible for organising the opening and closing ceremonies at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. But the elation was short-lived for the Brazilian sport marketing and events...

By Darragh Roche Schoolchildren are the latest to ridicule UKIP, and the parody keeps on coming. Nigel Farage now has a virtual alter ego as violent racist Nicholas Fromage, star of  a new mobile game. 'UKik' invites players to kick foreigners out of the UK (literally) and send racial stereotypes flying over the decidedly white cliffs of Dover. The Android app was developed by sixth form pupils, but its description page would make any newspaper satirist proud: "Do foreign voices...

 By Andy Irwin Immigration is once again set to be a key theme in the run up to this year’s general election. Backbench Conservatives want a tougher line in order to combat UKIP and Labour is attempting to position itself bizarrely as the ‘natural’ party of resistance against mass immigration. Toxic political narratives and campaigns of misinformation have propped up a profoundly negative way of looking at immigration in this country, particularly outside of London. All the while, families are suffering...

Mike Deverell discusses five reasons why those with less end up paying more In Terry Pratchett’s “Men At Arms” there’s a passage which neatly encapsulates why it’s so expensive to be poor: “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. “Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort...

By Elsa Buchanan, International Politics reporter They have been labelled "Nazis in pinstripes" by members of the government and rally by the thousands against asylum-seekers and the supposed threat of the "Islamification" of Germany. Yet, they are desperate to prove they are not racist to attract a wide range of supporters. Welcome into the world of the fast-growing "Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West”, best known under its acronym PEGIDA. In its most recent show of strength, the German-born far-right populist movement attracted...

By Elsa Buchanan, International Politics reporter After initial news reports relayed pictures of the oil spill “catastrophe” in Bangladesh last week, the media have fallen somewhat silent. Disasters are so common in Bangladesh that they go unnoticed. Children covered in fuel oil up to their waist are trying to gather the sticky slick using buckets. Local fishermen, trudging in dark waters, are using pots and sacks to collect the viscous fuel. Yet, it is in the quasi indifference of the international community that an...

By Anna Power, Film Editor Update Tuesday 23rd Dec: Sony in another U-turn have decided to release The Interview on December 25th. Bowing to presidential and public opinion the company have decided to go ahead with the release but to a limited theatrical audience.  Sony have announced that they are planning a simultaneous VOD release though they have yet to name the online streaming service.  UPDATE: CNN reports that Sony has now pulled the Christmas Day release of The Interview after...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor For the Tories today there was some early Xmas cheer (at economic news) and Xmas groans (at some lacklustre Xmas puns, which I hope to emulate during this article). Wages are now growing faster than inflation. It was the final piece of the jigsaw (that Auntie Janice got you) for the Conservatives. Now Labour couldn’t even attack on the cost of living crisis. Everything seems to be going the Tories way, so Labour decided to...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic  The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”  ― Karl Marx If there was ever an example of 21st century Marxism, the open letter fiasco between Russell Brand and Jo 'the disgruntled RBS worker' would be it. Brand's people's revolution has been widely rejected by the very people he's looking to represent. The reason why lies somewhere between the media oligarchs, the fat cats and politicians that...