Propoganda
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What place has poetry in a post-truth world?
In a post-truth world, poets can be superheroes. We have special powers to illuminate the truth, and prick the bubbles of lazy fiction. We can bend words to say the right thing. This week, ‘post-truth’ was declared international word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries. I like new words, so I doff my cap to folks like Oxford-educated Michael…
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The referendum viewed as marketing
The campaigns run by both sides in the recent referendum were failures. Here’s why. Remain – a classic negative campaign that backfired Remain vote’s tagline was Britain Stronger In Europe. At first glance this seems fair enough. But look again and you’ll see how extraordinarily passive it is. With no verb there is nothing to be done. Instead there is the hanging comparator…
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The Sun sinks even lower
The Rupert Murdoch-owned UK tabloid The Sun reached new depths this week. That Murdoch, an Australian-American can so blatantly intervene in British politics is of course galling enough. His discredited newspapers have been implicated in the phone hacking scandals, necessitating a personal apology from Murdoch to the family of a murdered child Milly Dowler, after his…
Peter Kenny: a writer's notebook 