Matthew Carr's Blog, page 30
March 11, 2018
Corbyn’s Migrant Failure
Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to the Scottish Labour Party conference last week has drawn a lot of criticism from the SNP and others, for appearing to attack and blame migrants for the UK’s economic woes. Corbyn’s defenders have naturally rejected these … Continue reading →
March 4, 2018
Edward Abbey: Desert Warrior
Over the last two years I’ve found myself reading a lot of what is often loosely called ‘nature writing’. This is partly because of my forthcoming book on the Pyrenees and my research into the so-called ‘discovery’ of the Pyrenees … Continue reading →
February 28, 2018
Fantasy Island
I haven’t written anything on this site for a while now. It’s actually rather difficult to know what to write when confronted with the astonishing spectacle of national self-destruction that is unfolding in front of our eyes. Nowadays hardly a day … Continue reading →
January 4, 2018
1 Day Without Us: Let’s Have a Different Conversation About Migration
The One Day Without Us campaign came into existence in the autumn of 2016, out of a conversation on Facebook. We were migrants, EU citizens and UK nationals, all of whom were appalled by the shocking increase in anti-migrant hate … Continue reading →
December 28, 2017
2017: The Year of Lying Brazenly
For connoisseurs of 21st century dystopian humour, there is a bleakly amusing clip doing the rounds showing Pete Hoekstra, the US Ambassador to the Netherlands, apparently being well and truly hoist by his petard. Hoekstra is a diplomat appointed by Trump … Continue reading →
December 19, 2017
Waiting for the Barbarian
Anyone familiar with horror films will recognize the following scenario: a group of people are being terrorised by a monster/serial killer/alien. They find a hiding place and fortify it. All their attention is focused on keeping the intruder out. Not … Continue reading →
November 30, 2017
Trump’s Christmas Message
This week the Trump non-presidency posted what may well go down in history as some of the weirdest photographs ever taken in the White House, featuring Melania Trump as the spirit of Christmas. One of them shows the First Lady … Continue reading →
October 29, 2017
The Intensification of Calamities: Catalonia’s Unlikely Cheerleaders
Of all forms of war, the ancient Greeks recognized that civil war was the worst and most destructive form of human conflict. This is because civil war shatters the bonds that hold societies together, tearing families, neighborhoods and communities apart, … Continue reading →
October 6, 2017
Despatches from Catalonia
Last week I posted a guest post from Barcelona in the lead up to the Catalan Referendum. Today I’m posting the following dispatch from the frontlines of the referendum struggle from a very different perspective, summing up the tumultuous events … Continue reading →
October 3, 2017
The Gospel According to Jacob Rees-Mogg
And so it came to pass that in the year 2017 there was great confusion in the land of Albion, and much weeping and gnashing of teeth amongst the tribe of Tory following the failure of May’s snap election and … Continue reading →
