Bulldozing under the carpet: The rumble in the Calais Jungle

In yet another fantastic example of policy more short sighted than Stevie Wonder, pseudo-socialist Francois Hollande has announced today that the Jungle in Calais will be fully dismantled by the end of the year.

In addition, the UK is taking a leaf out of the much respected, and not at all crazy, Trump playbook, and building a wall. And who’s going to pay for the wall? That’ll be the UK – apparently May’s suggestion to have a whip round around Syria, Eritrea and Sudan was dismissed as ‘unworkable’.

The wall is due to be finished by Christmas, which means it will out rank the seasonal satsuma in my stocking as the most unwanted festive gift I’ll ever receive.

Breaking News: Corbyn's biscuit preference finally revealed

I'm struggling to remember a time when the labour leadership contest wasn't ongoing, so long has it now been dragging on. This may also be because the PLP's reluctance to accept Corbyn as leader, has meant that there has been an apparent vacuum of power at the top of the party for the best part of the year.

Today, Corbyn elegantly demonstrated why he has tended to prefer engaging with actual people, rather than mainstream media - by engaging with some of the latter. On Radio 4's the Today programme, he was asked to explain why he didn't agree to interviews with the mainstream media (during a conversation which surely contradicted this point) and forced to endure Nick Robinson lazily regurgitating insults hurled at the labour leader by disgruntled establishment figures.

He was then whisked over to speak to that crucial and prestigious media outlet, Mumsnet. A website most famous for instigating penis beaker-gate, questions ranged from the deranged, to the bizarre, to the genuinely interesting. But even in this cathedral of tolerance and good humour, Corbyn was criticised for not typing quickly enough, and accused of hypocrisy for outlining his staunch anti-sugar stance, despite famously being an avid jam maker.

Possibly nothing exemplifies more powerfully the inherent issues in dealing with the "mainstream media" than the fact that the sum total of all of Corbyn's efforts today will be that the nation knows he'd plump for a shortbread if he was pushed.  

Politician in feeling under the weather shocker...

The US presidential election race reached new heights of reactionary ridiculousness this week, as Hillary Clinton's ability to effectively lead the world's most powerful country was called into question due to the fact she was taken unwell at an 11/9 (as it is called in British English) memorial ceremony. Apparently, succumbing to an unfortunate bout of pneumonia is more of a bar to taking up office than kicking babies out of buildings, inciting an assassination attempt on your presidential rival, and insulting the parents of a deceased war veteran combined. The fact that US voters seem to place more importance on the physical fitness of their potential leaders, rather than their levels of intelligence or knowledge, tells you everything you need to know about the ludicrous political situation across the pond. Rampant Trumpeteers are also conveniently forgetting the fact that Republican favourite (and fellow loudmouthed celebrity, rather than experienced politician) Ronald Reagan suffered from Alzheimer's during his presidency. Popular wartime president Franklin Roosevelt suffered from Polio for much of his time in office (a fact that even back then, was hidden from the population at large) and the famously tumultuous term of John F. Kennedy was completed despite his massive amounts of medication required to keep his Addison's disease in check. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and state that the contributions of these supposedly sickly statesmen will certainly out trump anything that the man who publicly stated the tower bearing his name was the tallest in the area after the destruction of the twin towers has to offer.

Comedy Capers Podcast: Episode 2, Part 1

Myself and my fellow budding comedian Nancy, discuss our differing approaches to starting our comedic journeys, and also explore the topic of women in comedy. (Part 1 of 3) Thanks to The Fox pub for providing a very agreeable rooftop for recording purposes - apologies for any background noise!

Nul Points: Brexit Backpedalling and the Burkini Bandwagon

The amount of post-Brexit backpedalling by politicians has been so astronomic I’m beginning to think they could give Bradley Wiggins and co a run for their money in the (backwards) team pursuit. The latest incident of flip flopping concerns the introduction of a point based immigration system – unfortunately nothing to do with the recent world Scrabble championships (surely Britain’s greatest sporting victory of the summer). 

Instead it refers to an “Australian style” system, whereby immigration would be policed by people’s skills, education and perceived usefulness to society. One would hope that this system would also work in reverse, and that hack journalists cum inept politicians Gove and Johnson would be summarily shipped out to somewhere they’d be able to do a little less damage. The fact that we are even considering taking our cues on immigration policy from a country which has one of the most oppressed native populations in the world is beyond parody.

Meanwhile, French lorry drivers are instigating a protest against  the desperate situation of a group of people who will ultimately keep the very economy on which these same drivers rely on ticking over. The greatest trick neo-liberalism has ever pulled off is convincing the majority of the populous that immigration is the problem, whilst simultaneously relying on it’s cheap labour to keep the greasy wheels of the capitalist economy turning. As with the burkini ban in France last week, this is reactionary politics, responding to the symptoms of global issues, not the root causes. The Jungle exists because of worldwide social and financial insecurity. Where will people go if this camp is cleared out? Back to where they came from? Warzones, police states and economic instability – and that’ll just be Western Europe if we continue pursuing a campaign of the politics of fear and division.