Free Thinking, on Radio 3 - Weds 25 oct

[Serial_Apologist]

Young Marx, Marxism
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis talks economics and Marxist analysis with Philip Dodd. Plus Young Marx - the new play from Richard Bean and Clive Coleman, starring Rory Kinnear.

I for one shall be listening to this, rather than watching The Apprentice: You're Fired, notwithstanding then tendency these days for "neo-Marxists", including the charming and persuasive Mr Varoufakis, to speak of there being better capitalist alternatives on offer to the disaster Neo-Liberalism was from the word go 35 years ago, and the way in which Mr Dodd's stiffly stuffy manner steers most BBC radio debates on serious topics.

[un barbu]

Mr Dodd, eh? I still delight in the moment Jeanette Winterson tore him a new ******** in an interview. Thoroughly well deserved.

[Serial_Apologist]

Mr Dodd, eh? I still delight in the moment Jeanette Winterson tore him a new ******** in an interview. Thoroughly well deserved.

Doddery.

[Serial_Apologist]

On behalf of anyone who wisely, in hindsight, missed this programme, Young Marx, the new play, according to its author, treats Karl Marx as some sort of stand-up comic. As with anything perceived to be a serious threat to established thought, the subject is thus as always made safe by being made an object of ridicule, benign or otherwise. In fact the whole programme, including the subsequent "discussion" on the merits or otherwise of free markets between Varoufakis and Ruth Lee, turned out to be one big joke at the expense of intelligent debate from whatever quarter when now more than ever, this is a crying out requirement.

[Lat-Literal]

On behalf of anyone who wisely, in hindsight, missed this programme, Young Marx, the new play, according to its author, treats Karl Marx as some sort of stand-up comic. As with anything perceived to be a serious threat to established thought, the subject is thus as always made safe by being made an object of ridicule, benign or otherwise. In fact the whole programme, including the subsequent "discussion" on the merits or otherwise of free markets between Varoufakis and Ruth Lee, turned out to be one big joke at the expense of intelligent debate from whatever quarter when now more than ever, this is a crying out requirement.

Ruth Lee is such a usual suspect, I am surprised they didn't ask Digby Jones to accompany her, possibly bringing in Yasmin Alibhai Brown to offer the sort of "Third Way" that would put any self-respecting Third Wayer off the number 3 for life. Remember that modest little claim of mine, oft repeated, that I am reluctantly the world's reflection (for which mainly read Britain)? Since the crash (mine on the last day of September) my ability to walk has been hampered by what was allegedly just a sprain on the left. On the right side I'm 54 - "right" equaling authoritative good sense but a non youthful and blatantly unfair distribution of resources for those "left" - and on the opposite I am now about the number of years since Karl Marx was born. This evening a personal telephone call from my senior GP after hours - yes, really, it still happens but you need to have had a lot of "history" and then finally made the right surgery choice - reveals that there is a crack. Metatarsel. The third as it happens, so that's the clear delineation between Corbyn at the big toe and Umunna at the small end. Should it ever heal, Labour really will want to call an election. But I'm a pessimist so Mrs May and global business are probably safe until it all tumbles (not trickles) down.