Notes
1. For non-Brits and others unaware of the British political scene:
a. | The Leveson Enquiry was set up by the British Government to report on the regulation of the press following a phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, a popular Sunday scandal sheet, owned and subsequently closed down by Rupert Murdoch's News International in a damage-limitation exercise. | ||||
b. | The deluded Government minister is Iain Duncan Smith, aka IDS, a former leader of the British right-wing Conservative Party, and currently Secretary of State for (No) Work and (Meagre) Pensions. | ||||
c. | ‘The Riots’, involving looting and destruction in run-down urban retail areas, initially in North London, and then throughout major conurbations of the UK, took place in August 2011. While British politicians laud demonstrations associated with the ‘Arab Spring’ as campaigns for democracy and freedom, expressions of anti-government feeling in Britain are punitively treated as criminal acts. Ho hum. |
2. McCabe, J. and Jermyn, D., 2011. Ageing is not to be defied. The Guardian, 9 Dec, p. 42.