There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
The coming cashless dystopia?
Tapping with your phone, using chip and pin, paying online — it all seems so much easier than notes and coins. But nothing pushed by big tech and the financial industry giants is in our favour, argues JOHN GREEN
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
MANY readers will already have experienced situations where they are unable to pay for things in cash and have to use a valid credit or debit card. Car parking is only one such transaction where having a card is almost obligatory these days, most supermarkets are changing their checkouts to cashless machines — and the new Amazon grocery shops don’t take cash at all. Many of us are now mostly shopping online and credit and debit cards are obligatory.
Even our relationship with government agencies and local authorities is now almost impossible without access to a computer and a credit card. What’s wrong with that, you might ask? If you’ve got a good credit rating and bank account, you may prefer the idea of paying by card — it’s simple and painless and you don’t have to carry a wad of cash and small change in your pocket.
We see headlines in the press, like “Customers move towards digital payments” and “Banks shutting down ATMs as people move towards digital payments” — as if everyone is just collectively acting like this, and the big institutions are just following our lead.
More from this author
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
JOHN GREEN is stirred by an ambitious art project that explores solidarity and the shared memory of occupation
JOHN GREEN applauds an excellent and accessible demonstration that the capitalist economy is the biggest threat to our existence
JOHN GREEN isn’t helped by the utopian fantasy of a New York Times bestseller that ignores class struggle and blames the so-called ’progressives’
