It’s a tricky one. The argument for the licence fee (and one that I used to subscribe to until I watched the Panorama corporate propaganda piece – see below) is that the Beeb produces drama of a quality not found anywhere else. Read more

Is the European Union an empty vessel into which any political content may be poured? Can it accommodate not just neoliberal conservatism but also Keynesian social democracy, hard-line greenery and even pro-nationalisation democratic socialism? Read more

We’ve got a referendum coming up in June that Cameron didn’t want, but was forced to promise at a time when it looked as though votes lost to UKIP might have cost him the election. His arguments now are largely based on the number of jobs that could be lost if we leave. Read more

I have a special interest in this book. As a young man in the 1980s I’d read Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa (Swahili for “togetherness”, “unity” or “familyhood”). I was inspired by his vision of a co-operative, non-hierarchical society based on sustainable villages Read more

‘Corporate interests have got to stop coming first’ – well said, Juliet Stevenson. A group of artists including actors Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott and Juliet Stevenson and designer Vivienne Westwood are fronting a campaign (artistsagainstttip.org) to raise public awareness of the trade deal TTIP Read more

EU Trade Secrets legislation will criminalise whistleblowers and journalists who expose corporations and their products or services. It’s another in a long list of steps aiming to put corporations above the law, but the rest of us very much under it. Read more

Do you have any idea of the value of all the Bitcoins in the world, compared to, say, the value of all the silver in the world, or compared to the wealth of Warren Buffet, or compared to the amount of global debt etc.? Read more

So, you all know about TTIP? Here’s a link if you don’t, plus see the posts to the right. It’s a proposed ‘trade deal’ that is designed to give more of our economy to the corporate sector. It’s supposed to be ‘transparent’, but of course it’s completely secret. Read more

I bought a packet of custard creams the other day, and saw that they were made by a company called Crawfords. I wondered who Crawfords were and who ultimately owns custard creams. I have a general feeling that a small cartel of giant corporations owns more-or-less everything branded Read more

Here’s a story. Only a minority understand this story (although I think that minority is growing), which is surprising because it has enormous importance for the way the world works.  Read more

Just allow a few seconds for that to sink in. Simon Stevens was Vice President of UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer in the US. He was in charge of global expansion of their business. Now he’s Chief Executive of the NHS. Read more

This is the second article generated from Mark Boyle’s book Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi. The first was about the ineffectiveness of reformism when faced with corporate capitalism – ‘The Machine’ as he calls it. Read more

There are many ideas out there on how to change the world – but very few include a strategy for implementing those ideas. Implementation is key. I had a conversation the other day with Roger Hallam, who used to be involved with Radical Routes, has lived in various communities and now Read more

I’m beginning to think that we could actually win this struggle against TTIP – the latest in the corporate strategy to undermine democracy. Yesterday, ‘Business Against TTIP’ launched – no corporations involved, obviously, but Read more

Investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) have been around for over fifty years. Originally meant to protect investors from losses due to government actions – what may have seemed a good idea at the time has spiralled out of control Read more

Sometimes, when I’m sitting in front of my laptop screen, I forget how many great people there are out there doing wonderful things, and it’s easy to believe that we’re never going to get rid of this damaging system, and that it will eventually damage ecology so much Read more

I’m at the Real Farming Conference in Oxford, and I’m writing this as a session on GM food is taking place. I’m sorry to have missed it, but I fell into a conversation until it was too late to join the session. However, I know someone who attended that session, and she’ll hopefully write a… Continue reading Live from the Real Farming Conference: why genetically-engineered food is about politics not science Read more

I’m blogging from the Real Farming Conference in Oxford, in Oxford Town Hall. This is the seventh annual conference, set up as a counter to the corporate farming conference running at the university in Oxford. I wasn’t expecting such a huge affair – 850 attendees, with some fantastic sessions. Read more

A new report from the US Department of Agriculture assesses the potential effects of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership on farmers. It’s pretty difficult to decipher, but our position is that we don’t want an increase in Transatlantic trade when it comes to agriculture. Read more

This was a very challenging and thought-provoking read. Mark lived without money for three years, and wrote the Moneyless Manifesto, published in 2012. This is his latest book about the corporate ‘Machine’ and appropriate responses to it. Read more