Arc de Tony (Blair)© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
Former prime Minister Tony Blair has been named in court at the phone hacking trial as offering personal advice to the former Chief Executive of News International Rebekah Brooks.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
Notable book published on the great British housing disaster by academic Danny Dorling with whom I have had some dealings in the past.
The hashtag #ukhousing on twitter is often informative about this vexed subject and its close connections with the sickly national economy.
© Matthew Buck for Drawnalism Ltd
Sketching from the BBC television discussion show broadcast on 13th February 2014.
© Matthew Buck at Hack Cartoons
In the wake of the catastrophic flooding in south west and southern England during January and early February here’s a very useful fisking of the government’s claims about maintained and uncut spending on flood prevention at the FT (registration required).
The cartoon was originally drawn in 2007 during the last great floods and in it I attempted to draw attention to the paradox in HMG’s attention depending upon where the victims of flooding lived.
Serious flooding on the Thames and in the ‘Greater South East’ isn’t dismissable for any government because it is too easy for the, er, mainstream media to reach it.
Updated – 13th February 2014: That’s why there are SO many pictures of politicians and broadcast television presenters standing in deep puddles presently.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
The campaigning ahead of the autumn referendum on the independence of Scotland from the United Kingdom has started. The figureheads for the respective Yes and No campaigns are Alastair Darling, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Alex Salmond, the first minister of Scotland.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons
Lloyds and Muggins – the partly nationalised bank may be for sale in the markets before the next election. To no one’s great surprise.
It’s also choosing to cut its provision of local advisors to Small and Medium enterprise (SMEs) aka taxpayers or shareholders. People may, of course, easily be all three of these categories.
© Matthew_Buck Hack Cartoons for http://tribunecartoons.com
Estimates of economic growth in the UK have been upgraded by the International Monetary Fund but isn’t clear that the kind of growth we are told to expect is good for us.
Also at home, it is suggested that ‘energy drinks’ are banned in school because of the bad behaviour and ill-health they can cause among the pupils.
The ‘energy’ drinks in the cartoon metaphor are Quantitative Easing, private debt and disguised public subsidy to the commercial property industry – the chancellor’s Help to Buy scheme. All provide a short-term fix of ‘energy’ which must be handy if there’s an election coming up, but in the long-term they also make us ill and fat.
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons for Waitrose Weekend
A fun commission about the public perception of Haggis. It’s a small Scottish animal, yes?
© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons and Multimedia
One of the more famous libel litigants of the recent past has died.
Lord Alistair McAlpine famously sued Sally Bercow, wife of the current speaker of the House of Commons, for libel following a tweet she made about him amid allegations of his collusion in covering up a long-running series of stories in paedophilia at a number of children’s homes in North Wales. This followed broadcast of allegations on BBC Newsnight in 2012.
Beyond the details of death, a bigger issue here is the spread of global communication tools and which mean legal jurisdictions are no longer as easily enforceable as they once were (see the cartoon).
In another example of this phenomenon, The Wall Street Journal newspaper in America has just won a legal case allowing it to report details of the long-running #hackingtrial about the activities of the former News International businesses (now News UK).
This means they will now be able to report detail that cannot legally be reported or repeated in the United Kingdom.
