Margaret Thatcher

‘A metaphor for a nation gone soft in the head’: the bizarre return of Mr Blobby

He’s pink, dotty and as British as a Boots meal deal. In recent months he’s duetted with pop stars, appeared on Saturday Night Live and been declared the UK’s equivalent of Mickey Mouse. What’s behind this strange comeback?Margaret Thatcher wasn’t to blame for the closure of Britain’s coalmines.

‘A metaphor for a nation gone soft in the head’: the bizarre return of Mr Blobby

He’s pink, dotty and as British as a Boots meal deal. In recent months he’s duetted with pop stars, appeared on Saturday Night Live and been declared the UK’s equivalent of Mickey Mouse. What’s behind this strange comeback?Margaret Thatcher wasn’t to blame for the closure of Britain’s coalmines.

Why Britain and America can’t stop firing their leaders

LONDON — Donald Trump and Keir Starmer will never be linked in the same fashion as political tandems Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher or Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. But the two beleaguered leaders may be remembered for leaving the same legacy — demonstrating that their countries are both in desperate need of a cleansing. Starmer is facing a revolt in his own party — he may be ousted by a man who’s not even in Parliament yet — and were Trump to submit to a secret confidence vote from...

Revealed: David Sullivan’s Sunday Sport sold sexualised images of 15-year-old girls

Sunday Sport’s ‘Countdown to 16’ used revealing photoshoots with young girls to trail topless pictures published after their 16th birthdaysIn 1987, the tabloid press in Britain was at the peak of its powers. The Sun newspaper, with its brash celebrity scoops and strident support for Margaret Thatcher – who won her third general election that year – was selling almost 4m copies a day. Competition for stories and readers was relentless, resulting in ever more salacious and lurid editorial...

Revealed: David Sullivan’s Sunday Sport sold sexualised images of 15-year-old girls

Sunday Sport’s ‘Countdown to 16’ used revealing photoshoots with young girls to trail topless pictures published after their 16th birthdaysIn 1987, the tabloid press in Britain was at the peak of its powers. The Sun newspaper, with its brash celebrity scoops and strident support for Margaret Thatcher – who won her third general election that year – was selling almost 4m copies a day. Competition for stories and readers was relentless, resulting in ever more salacious and lurid editorial...

So You Want a Coat of Arms

The first thing you notice upon entering the College of Arms, in London, is a small and incongruously blue statue of a kiwi, clutching a gold axe in its right claw. Sorry, let me try that again: In the odd historic language of heraldry, this is “a kiwi Azure grasping in the dexter foot an ice axe bendwise Or. ”The bird belongs to the coat of arms of Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander, who was part of the first team to conquer Mount Everest.

How Britain Became as Poor as Mississippi

The need for a socialist planned economy (2021)

This article is a transcript of the presentation given by Vincent R. Beaudoin at Fightback’s Marxist Winter School 2021. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Francis Fukuyama told us that this was evidence of the failure of the planned economy and the success of the capitalist market economy, and that it represented the end of history. In October 2018, however, he changed his mind.

What links Flamingo, Mercury Fountain and Trois Disques? The Saturday quiz

Boris Johnson described Theresa May as a ‘giant Yucca tree under whose shade everything dies’

Boris Johnson described Theresa May as a ‘giant Yucca tree under whose shade everything dies’ Exclusive: Sir Conor Burns, one of Boris Johnson’s closest aides, lays bare the former prime minister’s dim view of his predecessor in new book marking ten years since the Brexit referendum - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments The full scale of Boris Johnson’s contempt for former prime minister Theresa May is revealed in detail today by one of his closest former aides. Mr Johnson, who succeeded Mrs...