Sado-Populism and the Politics of Pain

Sado-populism is how society dies In our previous article, Post-Brexit and the Culture Wars, we discussed the concept of nostalgia: specifically, the difference between history and memory. We have also considered Boris Johnson and his American counterpart, Donald Trump, as eternity politicians. This article will focus on particular language and evocations that politicians like these

Post-Brexit and The Culture Wars

Britain is in crisis. It didn’t start with Covid but the pandemic has simultaneously revealed how precarious life actually is for the majority of people in Britain, and it continues to be used as a useful distraction by Johnson to cover his Brexit, sleaze and corruption tracks.  Britain has struggled to understand its place in

Are We All Just Extras in the Boris Show?

Ministers are now trying to draw a line under the shenanigans of the previous 48 hours. Come on plebs, don’t think about this one anymore. It doesn’t matter anyway now Mr. Paterson has resigned.  In brief, ministers were whipped by the Chief Whip, Mark Spencer, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, in order to overturn an impending suspension

Boris as Eco-Warrior

There he is, Boris Johnson, our leader in all his splendour and glory: the supposed embodiment of Britishness. Our representative on the world stage. Doesn’t he just make you so very proud to be English? What a sight to behold! Johnson, clueless and maskless – sitting beside Sir David Attenborough, the masked, 95 year-old climate activist – looking