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For any self-respecting wino - if ever there was a conflicting term - branded wine is an anathema. Call them what you like - bum wines, street wines, twist-cap wines, beverages for the economical drunkard - British supermarkets are littered with sugary bottles of plonk masquerading as wine. To the disconcerting drinker they offer a cheap entry point to the civilised world of wine, but for the aficionado the Blossom Hills and Black Towers of the isles are as civilised...

“Above all, it is criminal to excite anger and discontent without proposing a remedy, or only proposing a false remedy” --- Theodore Roosevelt, How Not to Help Our Poorer Brothers, 1987 Foreigners! Terror! Instability! Economic bombs! Elites! Democracy! Arrest warrants would fill several grand rooms if we were subject to this ‘debate’ in some Rooseveltian dystopia. By polling day, the noble leaders of our country, statesmen and women, would be indicted for the crimes of baseless posturing and obfuscation. Michael...

Many high ranking Tories told the Scottish people that a vote for independence was a vote for dire uncertainty. How would an exit from the union work? How long would it take? How would years of potential confusion affect in investment in Scotland, jobs and trade? That argument seemed to stick as Scots voted to remain in the UK, albeit narrowly. And they were right: there is no method for a country to leave the UK and no certainty about...

"We all strike a pose when it comes to social media, and we know everyone else does it too," Karen White wrote in the Huffington Post. "And yet, especially on a bad day, I still find the Voice of Judgment whispering in the back of my mind when I scroll through and see how happy everyone is, how capable and well-adjusted their children are, how much fun they have, how bravely they handle adversity." Social media has placed a veneer over...

When Jeremy Corbyn arrived in Llandudno on the Labour leadership campaign trail some 500 people spilled out of the doors of a hotel ballroom in seaside town of just 20,000. Corbynmania had gripped the country and he was elected with the largest mandate ever won by a party leader, though no previous Labour leader had been elected with so little support from its own MPs. It's all so Michael Foot isn't it? The scruffy, eternally socialist but ultimately unlikable leader is running The...

By Elena Orde, Editor of The Vegan It's safe to say that World Milk Day (1 June) just hasn't caught on. Despite the efforts of the dairy industry, it seems few people are interested in milk-themed festivities. This is just as it should be - far from being a cause for celebration, milk is bad news for our health, for cows, and for the environment. Historically cow's milk has enjoyed outstanding public relations, cleverly associating itself with fit athletes, strong...

Early last month the Western world was up in arms after an unprecedented data leak revealed the myriad ways in which the rich are exploiting secretive offshore tax regimes. Billions of dollars sheltered in Panama and similar ‘havens’ resulted in uproar as evidence of crucial tax revenue routed offshore unravelled. But amidst the controversy age-old problems continued to plight heavily indebted Greece. Tax evasion is just as rife over there, but it’s happening in their own backyard. This summer millions of Brits...

The ruling by the Supreme Court to uphold a gagging order preventing the naming of so-called ‘PJS’ at the centre of a threesome injunction has been met by a media outcry this morning, but that won’t prevent “kiss and tell stories” or “criticisms of private sexual conduct” been published. Free speech was “drowned in a paddling pool of olive oil” on Thursday proclaimed The Sun after five Supreme Court judges ruled by a majority of four to one that there...

I don't know how it happened, but it seems that almost overnight London has become a breeding ground for chalk board wankers. Every aspect of gastronomy in the capital has become completely up itself. Like there's not a punter out there who would ever dream of eating a loaf of bread if it hadn't been kneaded on the thighs of a virgin using flour blessed by Trapist monk and salt from the deepest depths of the Himalayas. Gastronomy is booming,...