UK politics

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist and commentator.   What a great, great, great, great, great day for the fundamental decency of so many of the British people, after seven long years of cruelty, mean-mindedness and division. Last night was, undoubtedly, Jeremy Corbyn’s night. Vilified by the media since winning the Labour […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist and commentator – and watch my band The Four Fathers playing ‘Stand Down Theresa’, a cover of The Beat’s classic protest song, ‘Stand Down Margaret.’   It was all going so well until Saturday. As I explained in my article, The Spectacular and Unforeseen Collapse of […]

When I was growing up in late 70s Britain, one of the great political anthems of the time — when we were not short of protest music from, to name but a few artists, the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Specials — was ‘Stand Down Margaret’ by The Beat, featured on their debut album, […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist and commentator.   Something extraordinary is happening in the UK, as Theresa May has turned a 20-point lead over the Labour Party into a three-point lead in the course of just one month, in what has been, without any advance warning, the most inept leadership performance […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist and commentator.   Today, June 1, the cultural nostalgia industry — a burgeoning movement that seeks safe havens in the past, where the reality of the here and now can be denied — is in overdrive, marking the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist and commentator.   Regular readers will know that Britain’s housing crisis — and especially the crisis in London — is something that angers and depresses me on an almost permanent basis, and for one unassailable reason —  because housing is, essentially, a human right, and yet, […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist and commentator.   Last week I paid a visit to DIY Cultures, a wonderful — and wonderfully packed — one-day event celebrating zines and the DIY ethos at Rich Mix in Shoreditch, curated by a core collective of Sofia Niazi, my friend Hamja Ahsan and Helena Wee, and […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist and commentator.   What strange, and almost unbelievably infuriating times we live in, as Donald Trump somehow remains president in the US, and Britain continues to be bludgeoned by a phoney demonstration of democracy. The latest example is the General Election on June 8, which follows […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist, commentator and photographer.   Please like ‘The State of London’ on Facebook. Please also note that the photos accompanying this article are all from May 11, and were taken from 2012 to 2017. Click on the photos to enlarge them. Five years ago, on May 11, […]

Listen to ‘Riot’ here! Today my band The Four Fathers are releasing ‘Riot’, our third online single from our forthcoming album, ‘How Much Is A Life Worth?’ following the release of ‘Close Guantánamo’ (2017 mix)’ in February, and ‘Dreamers’ last month. I initially wrote ‘Riot’ in 1986, while living in Brixton, as a punky reggae […]