Category Archives: Chewing the Fat

Life, Time, and the Days We Trade

The numbers tell a quiet but sobering story. Today, the average man in the UK can expect to live 81 years. Not so long ago, until 2011, that man could claim his state pension at 65. On average, that meant 16 years of life without work — years to spend however he wished before the inevitable closing of the book.

By 2030, the figures shift. Life expectancy nudges upward to 82 years, but the pension age rises faster, to 68. The gain in years is outpaced by the gain in labour, leaving the average man with just 14 years to call his own after a lifetime of work. A quiet recalibration of the equation: more time alive, but less time free.

And this is not the whole picture. Look closely at what’s been done to women’s pensions since 2011, and the story becomes even sharper, even more unsettling.

We were once told — and believed — that we worked not just for ourselves but for something larger: that our children would inherit a life better than the one we knew. That each generation would stand a little taller, see a little further. But the arithmetic of modern life suggests a different legacy: more years spent earning, fewer years living.

It is worth asking, as the days pass and the calendar turns — what are we working toward? And when the work is done, how much of ourselves will be left to enjoy what remains?

Oblivion – A Memoir of Love, Loss, and LightUntil life is done

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By Héctor Abad Faciolince

Some books slip into our lives almost by accident. A glimpse of a cover on a dusty shelf, a fleeting mention in the footnote of another work, or a casual reference in conversation — and suddenly they are there, claiming space in our thoughts. I’m not entirely sure how Héctor Abad’s memoir Oblivion found me, but I am certain I will not forget it.

Before opening its pages, I knew neither the author nor his father, whose life — and death — form the beating heart of this 261-page work. Abad’s father, Dr. Héctor Abad Gómez, was a renowned medical doctor, university professor, and fearless human rights advocate in Colombia. In 1987, he was murdered — silenced by those aligned with the country’s wealthy elites, government, and military.

Yet Oblivion is far more than a political testament or an account of injustice. It is a luminous exploration of the knotty, tender, and often unspoken dynamics between father and son. Abad writes with grace and intimacy, weaving the personal and the political into something achingly human. The result is a book that is not merely about loss, but about the enduring presence of love and the stubborn beauty of those who choose to stand against darkness.

This is a memoir to be read slowly, to be savoured — a work that affirms the world would indeed be a poorer, dimmer place without people like Héctor Abad Gómez.

Walls Come Tumbling Down – Music, Politics, and the Sound of Resistance

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By Daniel Rachel

Some books do more than recount history — they revive the pulse of an era. Daniel Rachel’s Walls Come Tumbling Down is one such work: a sprawling 500-page testament to the intertwined music and politics of Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone, and Red Wedge, charting a turbulent but transformative period from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s.

For me, these were not just historical movements. They formed the soundtrack to my own coming of age, shaping me from child to adult, both musically and professionally. Rock Against Racism sparked my political awareness; Red Wedge made me an active participant. Rachel captures this journey in a meticulously structured, linear timeline — part oral history, part cultural encyclopedia — that documents the key figures and pivotal events with the weight they deserve.

Reading it in today’s context, I could not help but draw parallels to the energy and urgency of Black Lives Matter. While much has changed since the overtly racist culture of the 1970s — a time when prejudice was not only tolerated but celebrated — the persistence of hate, both on the streets and in the shadows of social media, reminds us that progress is fragile.

Rachel’s book lands at a time when cities still reel from racially-motivated violence, when online platforms amplify ignorance, and when political leaders rely on fear and slogans to paper over complex truths. Walls Come Tumbling Down is not just a chronicle of past activism; it is a mirror held to the present, asking uncomfortable but necessary questions about who we are and what we stand for.

In the end, Rachel reminds us that while good intentions can inspire, only action changes the world. The music may have been the rallying cry, but it was — and remains — the movement behind it that matters most.

Public Nuisance – The Psychedelic Ghosts of ’69

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The late 1960s was an era of kaleidoscopic shifts — psychedelia in full bloom, garage rock breaking through, and bands pushing the limits of sound as the world outside roiled with political unrest. It’s a period that’s been mythologised in countless films and books. But some stories remain in the margins, whispered rather than sung. One such tale belongs to Public Nuisance.

Formed in 1964, Public Nuisance began as a pop outfit, riding the same wave as countless garage hopefuls. By the decade’s close, they had sharpened their sound into a heavier, more psychedelic edge, sharing stages with the likes of Buffalo Springfield, The Doors, and the Grateful Dead. In late ’68 and early ’69, the band cut an album’s worth of material with heavyweight producer Terry Melcher.

Then history intervened. Melcher, having sub-let his Los Angeles home to Roman Polanski and Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys, was caught in the dark aftershocks of the Manson Family murders. Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, was among the victims; Wilson had been socialising with Manson’s followers. The trauma drove Melcher into seclusion, shuttering his label and leaving Public Nuisance without a lifeline.

By 1970, the band was gone, their recordings shelved and unheard except by a handful of survivors from that drug-fuelled, free-falling era. It would take 35 years before their music finally surfaced — resurrected as Gotta Survive, a double-CD anthology that stands as both a time capsule and a testament to a band that might have been.

Public Nuisance never got their moment in the sun, but their belated debut still burns with the strange, vivid light of 1969 — a ghostly reminder that some of rock’s greatest stories are the ones that almost slipped away.

From the Ashes of Hope to the Rise of Populism

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The 1990s were no stranger to bloodshed and greed, yet amid the chaos, there were flickers of progress — small seeds of hope that seemed, for a moment, to promise a better future.

1991: The Berlin Wall’s collapse triggers a domino effect, toppling authoritarian regimes across Russia and its former Soviet satellites.

1995: The world, united for once, confronts an environmental threat. The production of CFC gases — silent destroyers of the ozone layer — is banned.

1997: The IRA calls a ceasefire, paving the way to the Good Friday Agreement a year later, a rare and hard-won peace on European soil.

2000: The Camp David Summit gathers Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an attempt at reconciliation, the latest chapter in a long and bitter history.

These events, in different ways, underpinned a resurgence of social democracy that, for some, found its symbolic peak in the election of Barack Obama in 2009. And then — it turned to ash.

During lockdown, I sought to understand how we had arrived at our current moment. The geopolitical drama surrounding Russia and China added urgency, but what I found was not simply a tale of foreign villains. I read voraciously — five books that, in their own ways, peel back the layers of this era:

Putin’s Kleptocracy – Karen Dawisha
Moneyland – Oliver Bullough
Democracy in Chains – Nancy MacLean
Dark Money – Jane Mayer
Putin’s Russia – Anna Politkovskaya

Each opens a door for the inquisitive mind, though they make for uneasy reading. They reveal a pattern in which wealth buys power, power buys protection, and the rules are rewritten to safeguard the interests of a global elite.

Yes, there is ample evidence of corruption in both Russia and China. But the narrative that frames our predicament as a simple clash between “us” and “them” is lazy at best, willfully misleading at worst. This is not a danger born of Reds lurking under our beds; it is a creation of our own making. The roots stretch back long before the Soviet collapse or China’s economic rise.

The oligarchs of Russia and the medal-clad tycoons of the People’s Republic have simply claimed their seats at a table already set by Western plutocrats. Together, they form a new aristocracy — global in reach, united in purpose, and accountable to no one but themselves.

What can be done? We can start by recognising that their influence depends on our consent. And then, with clear eyes and a little courage, we can refuse to elect their paid agents. The world we inherit depends on the choices we make now — not in the corridors of power, but at the ballot box.

Cogs

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Inside the Clockwork of Power: Huawei, Johnson, and the Global Struggle for Technological Supremacy

In horology — the precise study of timekeeping — the mainspring provides the energy, the ratchet stops the unwinding, and a series of wheels and cogs divide the motion into measured intervals. It is a delicate, interlocked mechanism, hidden from view yet essential to order.

Politics, too, has its own clockwork: a hidden interplay of forces, interests and manoeuvres. When Boris Johnson, freshly empowered after his 2019 election victory, decided to allow Huawei a role in Britain’s 5G network, the decision appeared to be the mainspring in motion — a calculated step towards technological progress. Within months, however, the mechanism was forced into reverse by a powerful combination of domestic opposition and international pressure.

The Huawei Reversal

In January 2020, Johnson approved Huawei’s involvement in Britain’s 5G infrastructure, despite the fact that another Chinese telecoms provider, ZTE, had been banned from the UK since 2018 over “national security risks” deemed “impossible to mitigate”.

The backlash was swift. Concerns over security combined with the strategic lobbying of American corporate and political interests. Six months later, on 14 July 2020, Johnson reversed course, ordering the removal of all Huawei equipment from UK networks by 2027.

The reversal came in a post-Brexit environment where the UK was struggling to balance two contradictory ambitions: securing new global trade deals while preserving as much as possible of the economic advantages of the EU single market.

A Prime Minister as Global Trader

Johnson imagined himself a dealmaker in the mould of a buccaneering Del Boy or a wartime Churchill — proud, defiant, and unencumbered by what he saw as constraints. But his decision on Huawei collided with the geopolitical realities of a world in which technological infrastructure is the front line of a deeper struggle: not just for state security, but for economic supremacy.

The Yuan and the Dollar

At the heart of this struggle lies China’s long-term challenge to the supremacy of the US dollar. By keeping the yuan pegged to the dollar, Beijing fuelled its export-led growth, expanding its share of global GDP and trade. In 2015, the IMF granted the yuan reserve currency status; it is now the world’s fourth most-traded currency, overtaking the yen, the Canadian dollar and the Australian dollar.

For some in Washington, Huawei’s global rise is not just a corporate success story, but part of a strategic campaign: to couple Chinese-built telecommunications infrastructure with Chinese currency dominance.

Technology’s Two Pillars

5G technology depends on two complementary pillars. The first — “single-purpose” providers — build the physical infrastructure: Ericsson (Sweden), Nokia (Finland), Samsung (South Korea), Huawei and ZTE (China). The second — “multi-purpose” providers — supply the software, data management and artificial intelligence that make the networks function: Cisco, Dell, Hewlett Packard (all US), and Lenovo (China).

Huawei, uniquely, straddles both spheres. With over $200m in annual government subsidies and $100bn in credit for customers, it can enter markets at a loss, undercutting competitors. It is this dual capability, coupled with Beijing’s broader economic strategy, that most alarms Washington.

The Campaign Against Huawei

Johnson’s January 2020 decision triggered an intense lobbying effort. One key player was the Heritage Foundation, a US conservative think tank with deep connections to the Trump administration and a long-standing hostility to Chinese influence in Western infrastructure.

The Foundation met senior UK officials and Conservative MPs to press for a reversal. Among those leading the domestic campaign was Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader with close ties to US political networks. In 2018, Smith declared share options in NLYTE Software, a UK company supplying data centre management software to Cisco — a direct competitor to Huawei in the “multi-purpose” sphere.

Other familiar names in the Heritage orbit included Liam Fox, the former trade secretary whose failed promise of “the easiest trade deal in history” with the EU remains a cautionary tale.

The Broader Question

Britain’s relationship with authoritarian states has always involved a selective blindness. Security concerns about Huawei did not prevent a Conservative-led government granting China General Nuclear Power a 30% stake in Hinkley Point C in 2012.

The Huawei episode revealed how swiftly technological policy can be swept into the currents of geopolitics — where corporate competition, national security, and diplomatic positioning form an inseparable tangle.

The Clockwork Lesson

The workings of a clock are intricate, interdependent, and largely invisible until something fails. In the same way, the machinery of global trade, diplomacy and technology policy turns behind closed doors. The Huawei affair exposed the fragility of Britain’s position — not just in its relationship with China, but in its attempt to navigate between the gravitational pulls of the world’s two largest economies.

When the mechanism jams, the damage is often done before the public even hears the ticking stop.

The Government’s Capacity Delusion

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For 25 years, I have worked in professional environments where the word capacity is often wielded less as a measure of actual output and more as a convenient justification for inertia or underperformance. Never has this been more evident — or more dangerous — than in the government’s public claims about coronavirus testing.

Back in late March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson proudly announced the UK’s intention to ramp up daily COVID-19 tests from 5,000 to 10,000, then 25,000, and “hopefully very soon” to 250,000. A month on, with Johnson convalescing from the virus himself, his deputy Dominic Raab declared the government had a capacity of 40,000 tests per day, soon to reach 100,000.

But this is where government rhetoric turns from hopeful to hollow. Ministers are no longer talking about tests actuallyconducted but about capacity — a nebulous term implying that all the ingredients and infrastructure exist to perform those tests, even if they are not currently being fully utilised.

The difference is profound. Having capacity means having resources — kits, labs, staff, supply chains — theoretically ready to deliver. Actual testing, however, depends on the seamless operation of a complex system: from procuring supplies and managing labs, to collecting samples and returning results swiftly to patients.

Here lies the rub: Britain’s health and care sector does not possess this holistic capacity. Years of market-driven reforms — privatisation, outsourcing, the creation of artificial internal markets — have fragmented the system. Coupled with austerity-driven underfunding, this has left the supply chain riddled with vulnerabilities.

The government doesn’t conduct tests itself. Instead, it relies on a patchwork of private contractors, local NHS trusts, public health bodies, and commercial laboratories. Without integrated coordination and investment, these pieces struggle to function as a cohesive whole.

The consequences go beyond testing. Personal protective equipment shortages, care home crises, delayed contact tracing — all are symptoms of a fractured health and social care ecosystem ill-prepared for a pandemic. The care home scandals, epitomised by Winterbourne View and numerous subsequent cases, are a tragic reminder that the pursuit of market competition in health and social care has often come at the expense of patient safety and quality of care.

So while ministers boast about the government’s “capacity” to test 100,000 people daily, the stark reality is that the system to deliver those tests at scale remains deeply flawed. “Capacity” in government statements is often little more than political spin — a way to deflect blame while avoiding the hard work of fixing structural weaknesses.

This fixation on capacity also masks the lived experience of NHS and social care workers, who struggle daily with inadequate resources and conflicting directives. The government’s focus on hitting headline targets obscures the pressing need to build a genuinely resilient and integrated testing and care system.

The broader lesson here is that words matter. In politics and public health, capacity cannot be a euphemism for promise. It must translate into delivery. To claim otherwise is to gamble with lives.

The government must move beyond the illusion of capacity as a comforting statistic and confront the fragmented reality of Britain’s health and social care infrastructure. Only by addressing these long-term systemic failures can we hope to manage this pandemic — and the next crisis — effectively.

Until then, the difference between what the government can do and what it merely plans to do will remain a deadly chasm.

Accountability

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The decisions made by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government have had a direct impact on the lives — and deaths — of thousands across the United Kingdom. When lives are at stake, accountability becomes paramount. It was this fundamental truth, alongside growing personal anxieties, that compelled me to write my first blog on the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis on 28 May 2020. The response was swift and polarised — drawing both criticism and praise.

Throughout history, governments have risen and fallen on the strength of their decisions. Yet in today’s era of “fake news” and a largely compliant media landscape, Johnson’s administration seems to operate with near impunity. His American counterpart once arrogantly declared, “I could shoot somebody and not lose voters.” This chilling admission reflects a dangerous disconnect: a leader unaccountable to a passive electorate. Boris Johnson and his government mirror this same national complacency — shielded by a weak opposition and an electorate reluctant to demand answers.

The UK government behaves like a sponge, absorbing public opinion but spinning it through a narrow populist ideology, endlessly bobbing and weaving through political icebergs. It doles out empty promises, deflects responsibility, and drowns discourse in a flood of meaningless soundbites. Behind the scenes, the administration panics as it struggles to maintain fragile political alliances, blinded by the delusion of representing a “one nation” party. The Prime Minister, terrified of media scrutiny, and a senior advisor bent on “draining the swamp” of the civil service, have fostered a toxic environment where effective governance is impossible.

Meanwhile, on the global stage, Donald Trump threatens to defund the World Health Organisation. At home, the UK government urges footballers to take wage cuts to support the NHS — yet ministers, many of whom are multi-millionaires drawing taxpayer-funded salaries, refuse to make any financial sacrifice themselves. This cynical pantomime serves only to distract from failures with lethal consequences.

Comparisons in UK media focus on countries hardest hit by the virus, such as the US, Spain, and Italy. Rarely are other nations held up — those managing better outcomes for their citizens. The Johnson government’s evasions cannot hide these uncomfortable questions:

Why is the UK’s testing capacity so woefully inadequate?
Why does the government only publish hospital death figures, excluding community and care home fatalities, unlike France or other countries?
Why are frontline NHS and care workers left without adequate personal protective equipment, while the government invests in symbolic gestures like badges?
Why did the government allow flights from some of the worst-affected regions without proper screening?

Closer to home, the Republic of Ireland cancelled large gatherings and St Patrick’s Day celebrations early on. The UK, by contrast, permitted events like the Cheltenham Festival, large concerts, and major sporting tournaments — even involving teams from heavily affected countries. At the time of writing, Ireland’s death toll stood at approximately 400, compared to 12,000 in the UK. Adjusted for population, that equates to 7.4 deaths per 100,000 in Ireland versus 17 deaths per 100,000 in the UK — more than double.

Across the Atlantic, California — despite a dysfunctional White House — implemented bans on large gatherings as early as 9 March, followed by stricter limits. The state’s population density may be lower than Britain’s urban centres, but the key difference lies in taking the threat seriously from day one. Dr Neha Nanda, Medical Director of Infection Prevention at Keck Medicine, University of Southern California, told the BBC: “Even being one day ahead can have a huge impact… the mortality we will be able to avert is huge.”

No one yet knows how this pandemic will ultimately conclude for the UK, Ireland, or any nation. But the facts at this moment are stark: British citizens are dying at twice the rate of their Irish neighbours. This reality is neither abstract nor inevitable — it is a consequence of political choices and public health failures.

So why does our national press shy away from reporting this? Why is such a glaring disparity missing from the headlines?

When lives are literally on the line, the public deserves truth, transparency, and most of all, accountability.

Commuters

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I have to confess something: when I moved from Bristol to London in the late ’90s, I was like a kid with an oversized train set. The London Underground fascinated me. I never quite understood why my colleagues would arrive at work every morning with a chorus of complaints — the wails, the grunts, the exasperated sighs.

Sure, the Tube wasn’t always pleasant. Especially on a scorching day between Brixton and Vauxhall, crammed into an overcrowded carriage, waiting endlessly for the lights to change and listening to those unintelligible announcements from the driver.

Still, I found solace in slipping on my headphones and watching the underground world unfold around me. It was like its own secret society, governed by an unwritten set of rules enforced with iron discipline:

Don’t acknowledge anyone else.
Pretend you’re reading something important.
Do not disturb.
Avoid all physical contact.
Ignore others’ misdemeanours.
Master the art of pivoting and balancing against gravity.
Occasionally, gaze at your own reflection.
Rush hour? Be a complete and utter tosser.

Back then, social distancing was an art form. After a while, you might nod briefly at a familiar face — a small, silent greeting in the chaos.

During my first week working at Lambeth Council, I was still swimming through a sea of new names and faces. Boarding the Tube at Brixton one morning, I spotted one of my new colleagues at the far end of a fairly full carriage. I caught his eye and gave him a firm nod. Nothing. He looked away.

A few moments later, he glanced my way again. I smiled and nodded once more. Still no response — just the uncomfortable shuffle behind a fellow passenger, who acted as a human shield. His reflected gaze in the window met mine again. I returned the stare.

Feeling a bit miffed, I thought, Well, fuck it, you miserable sod.

As the train pulled into Stockwell, I noticed him glance again through the window’s reflection. I looked away, annoyed. Doors closing, next stop Vauxhall. Suddenly, he leapt off the train, leaving me behind.

He stood tall on the platform, locking eyes with me as the train pulled away. His gaze screamed, “Who the hell are you?”

It was only then I realised that my silent, unresponsive Tube companion was none other than Mick Jones — guitarist from The Clash.

And just like that, our paths never crossed again.