Miliband forgot the economy!

So I tuned into Prime Minister's Question Time last weekend - mainly to see Cameron get the kicking he royally deserved for hiring a welfare minister who thinks that it is acceptable to indicate that the disabled may not be worth paying a minimum wage (http://stochasticreview.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/lord-freuds-slip.html).

However, I was astonished to find that the Tories are still droning on about Miliband's accidential omission of mention of the deficit in his Manchester speech in late September. "I hope Ed remembers to attend the doctor's appointment for his sore throat" quips the intolerably smug Prime Minister in a show of mock sympathy for Miliband.

Insincere condolences are something that Britain has got used to under the Coalition. Perish the thought but some of us might even think we can afford to forget the economy every now and again rather than using austerity to justify a barrage of policies that keep the poor unsupported, vital national services privatised and growing numbers of young people excluded from adequately renumerative employments or affordable housing.

... but then such thinking goes against the austerity play book in an election where Cameron seems determined to pander to the privileged and/or UKIP supporters.

Lord Freud's slip

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29628557

In before the newspaper cartoonists - now that's what you call a Freudian slip!

But seriously we didn't need one idiot minister to let us know how the government plans to treat the disabled if they win re-election. Their current moves to reduce benefits for all those who need them whether they are working or unemployed, disabled or fit, shows how little concern they have for such groups.    

Of Tokyo and Foster Parents

Sadly I wasn't quite as thrilled with the second outing for the Peaky Blinders as I was with the action-packed return of the series.

Don't get me wrong - I am interested in Arthur's growing psychopathy and the fate of Polly's adopted children but I would have liked to see further developments in the Irish and London expansion elements of the plot. One growly meeting with Tom Hardy in a London distillery was pretty much all we got this time around (though kudos to the producers for featuring a Jewish gang that look like real 20th century immigrants rather than being exclusively Haredi with side curls).

Still this caveat is more personal taste than anything and I'm definitely looking froward to the next episode and (hopefully) a restored focus on Campbell's intrigue and brawling with Italian crime bosses.

Explosive start to the second series of Peaky Blinders

(Spoilers ahead - be warned)

Absolutely fucking fantastic first episode! The twist before the credits rolled dragged you in nice and fast and the promise of a simultaneous expansion into the vicious gang politics of 1920s London and the politics of the Irish civil war should ensure that the series remains fresh.

Admittedly it seemed a bit cheesy that both Grace and Campbell survived the shooting incident at the end of the first series. We hadn't previously been given any evidence that Grace was the sort of double agent that would fail to finish off a dangerous and ruthless opponent. However, when it means that we get another series of three great central characters facing off against each other you can hardly bemoan the methods.

All in all I'm not sure that this episode could have been bettered. Let's hope the series shapes up well after this early promise!