Posts by Alan Simpson
Let them eat … what? – Britain’s implosion of political leadership
The 1.5 million households in Britain facing destitution and the 10 million simply in poverty will have wept at the emptiness of the government’s Queen’s Speech programme. There’s to be no emergency Budget to pay the first £1,000 of spiralling energy costs, no windfall tax on oil and gas profiteering, no restoration of cuts in…
Read MoreThe Economics of Sleaze
If Conservative MPs can spare a moment from watching porn in the House of Commons chamber they will find lots more ‘hot stuff’ calling for their attention in the world outside. A vast swathe of South East Asia faces the hottest conditions they have experienced in over 100 years. Hot babes, hot kids, hot adults,…
Read MoreMeltdown – Confronting the delusions of our time
In these scary times it is hard to think much beyond the tragedy that is Ukraine. Bombed hospitals sit badly in anyone’s books. Flood tides of refugees shame us all. But if any good is to be salvaged it must come from a bigger political stock-take, not from token gestures. Everything in this process is…
Read More‘Do Look Up’: a time to change everything
2022 is not going to be the year I turn into a film critic. But if you haven’t seen the film ‘Don’t Look Up’, do so now. This isn’t just because the film offers a terrific satire on the conflicting political influences of science and spin, or because there really is a meteorite heading Earth’s…
Read MoreDemocracy: the Writing on the Road
Forget the shenanigans about Tory Party partying, something far more insidious it taking place; something eating away at the foundations of British democracy. Socialised distraction is just a cover for doing so. As Boris Johnson knows all too well, insecurity is the handmaiden of authoritarianism. Create it and you erode public confidence in an array…
Read MoreCOP26 and ‘The Great Law of Peace’
Don’t blame them; the sherpas, the civil servants and Ministers. They did their best, struggling to get commitments (rather than conditional brackets) out of COP26 negotiations. Surviving on caffeine and little sleep, they genuinely tried to get something meaningful past fossil fuel lobbyists and national vetoes. In the end, everyone had something to grumble about.…
Read MoreLiving in the Overshoot
“Don’t choose extinction”. This was the simple advice offered by a dinosaur in the UN’s CGI video message to global leaders. The question is whether any have the sense to heed it. The chaotic upheavals surrounding Glasgow’s COP26 gathering suggest the message is not getting through fast enough. To be fair, there were hopeful signs.…
Read MoreKeystone COPout
Sometimes there are events that make you rail in anger. Others make you weep. Reading the government’s plethora of ‘net zero’ policy papers ahead of November’s COP26 climate conference, I could barely hold back the tears. It wasn’t their lack of ambition but the absence of a route map (with sufficient resources and urgency) that…
Read MoreMen (and Women) in Dark Times
In her book Men in Dark Times, the philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the notion of inner emigration. What was it that stood in the way of so many prominent/influential people challenging the rise of Hitlerism or organising escape routes from it? From the biographies she explored, Arendt concluded that many found the external realities of…
Read MoreAre local authorities equipped to reach net zero?
Are local authorities equipped to reach net zero? “Only rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in this decade can prevent climate breakdown” – Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Advisor. This Inquiry could not be more timely or important. Before the last election, I set up scientific briefings for MPs calling for a step…
Read More