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
Heroes and Bob Vylan
SOLOMON HUGHES give a full-throated endorsement to punk-tinged, hardcore-splashed, grimey political output of Britain's foremost rap-rock duo
Bob Vylan at the Mobo Awards
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
IF you want to fill your speakers with sharp, loud and sometimes funny political rap-rock this Xmas, I suggest you buy as much Bob Vylan product as you can.
I’ll try to tell you how Bob Vylan sounds by pointing to the ways they are like some other bands in the political rock rap area, but comparisons only take you so far, because they are also very like themselves. The duo are made up of singer-guitarist Bobby Vylan and drummer, Bobbie Vylan.
This band-members-all-with- nearly-the-same-name-as-the-band is not their only atypical feature: when I caught the band in Southampton last month, lead singer Bobby Vylan announced “We will be starting this gig, like all our gigs, with a moment of yoga stretching and meditation, and you are welcome to join us” and preceded to do just that, to a low guitar hum.
It is a sign of how Bob Vylan isn’t afraid of being 100 per cent “right on,” but can also carry their “right on” views with good-natured humour as well as fierce anger.
Musically the band see themselves a mash-up of punk rock and grime-y rap. The punky guitar sound is of the hardcore, slightly metal-y kind — enough for them to play well at hard rock festivals like Download. The rapping and singing are full-on political, with slogan-y choruses backed by plenty of wordplay.
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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
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US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
