January « 2019 « John Harris

Archive for January, 2019

The Brexit threat hanging over startups in the UK tech sector

Tuesday, January 29th, 2019

EU departure is hitting staffing and triggering animosity to European employees

“We allow cultures to understand each other better,” says Bernhard Niesner, the co-founder and chief executive of a language-learning app called Busuu.

Its HQ is near Old Street tube station, on the edge of east London’s Silicon Roundabout district. About 100 people work at Busuu, helping users learn languages including French, English, Polish, Arabic and Chinese. Defying the usual tech stereotypes, 40% of the staff are women. An array of flags adorns the walls; there is a constant multilingual chatter.

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England can be better than the Brexit caricature. We have to make the case for it | John Harris

Monday, January 28th, 2019

It’s time we started building a new England – one that is modern, diverse and open

There are two kinds of questions to be asked about Brexit. One of them defines the day-to-day grind at Westminster, and is about an urgent set of issues that encompasses everything from the most basic framework for trade to the future of Northern Ireland, and which still seem all but insoluble. But as all the parliamentary drama on goes on, it is the other big Brexit conundrum that shows even fewer signs of resolution. To use a phrase habitually deployed by the prime minister herself, what kind of country do we want to be? Put another way, who are we?

To some extent we know the answer, and it is not pretty. Whatever the varied motivations of many of the people who voted for it, our exit from the European Union looks to outsiders like an expression of nostalgia, introversion and a very unbecoming belligerence. Some of the most powerful branches of government seem to be operating on much the same impulses. As evidenced by the Windrush scandal and a steady stream of heartbreaking deportation stories, the Home Office now seems to be institutionally sociopathic. So does the Department for Work and Pensions.

The public gets what the public wants, even when it ruins the lives of many of the public themselves

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The Final Days of EMI review – from Beatles glory to Coldplay toothbrushes

Sunday, January 27th, 2019

Eamonn Forde’s account of the fall of the music company, whose acts included the Sex Pistols and Rolling Stones, is full of comedy and tragedy

In the summer of 1965, the Rolling Stones released “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”. On the US version, its B-side was a makeweight piece titled “The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man”, which directed sneering contempt on some poor unfortunate who worked for the group’s record label: “I promo groups when they come into town / Well they laugh at my toupee, they’re sure to put me down.”

Thus began a lineage of rock songs founded on the eternal contradiction between the artistic impulse and the hucksterish, often seedy ways of the music business. This reached a peak of fury and cynicism in the era of punk with the Sex Pistols’ gloriously incoherent classic “EMI”, in which John Lydon vents his rage at the company that put out the group’s first single in 1976, only to dump them. “It’s an unlimited supply,” he spits. “And there is no reason why / I tell you it was all a frame / They only did it ’cos of fame / Who? / EMI!”

The once-great British business was sold to competitors, without many of the acts who had underwritten its reputation

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No deal, no problem? – Politics Weekly podcast

Thursday, January 24th, 2019

Heather Stewart is joined by Dan Sabbagh, Michael Savage and Katy Balls to discuss the UK’s growing appetite for a no-deal Brexit . Also the view from Britain with John Harris and the view from Europe with Jennifer Rankin. Also up for discussion is parliament, proxy voting and pregnant MPs

Despite desperate entreaties from business and MPs, Theresa May is steadfastly refusing to take the possibility of a no-deal Brexit off the table, and the UK looks perilously close to crashing out of Europe on WTO terms.

But there seems to be a sense of growing support for a no-deal Brexit: in a poll last week, the most popular option for what happens next was no deal, backed by 28% of voters.

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No deal, no problem? – Politics Weekly podcast

Thursday, January 24th, 2019

But there seems to be a sense of growing support for a no-deal Brexit: in a poll last week, the most popular option for what happens next was no deal, backed by 28% of voters.

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