Paul Mason



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Journals/Organisation: UK broadcast | BBC

Email: [mailto:paulmason60@gmail.com paulmason60@gmail.com]

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Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/paulmason | http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/paul-mason

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Networks: https://twitter.com/#!/paulmasonnews



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Other roles/Main role: Economics editor at Channel 4 News (and previously BBC's Newsnight)

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Viewpoints/Insight: Paul Mason: the Robert Peston of revolution - Richard Godwin, Evening Standard, 7th December 2011

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Awards/Honours: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mason_(journalist)#Awards

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Journals:

 * No regular column



Articles:

 * Clinging to austerity will kill this government – the small-state dream has evaporated - Theresa May has only a few weeks to get out of crisis mode and develop an alternative strategy to cuts, entitlement and neglect - 19th June 2017
 * Jeremy Corbyn​ has won the first battle in a long ​war​ against the ruling elite - Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci understood that before taking power, the left must disrupt and defy common sense – just as Labour defeated the proposition that ‘Corbyn can’t win’ - 13th June 2017
 * The Qatar spat exposes Britain’s game of thrones in the Gulf - This clash between Britain’s allies in the so-called war on terror matters. If Corbyn is prime minister on Friday, there will be a break with the appeasement of jihadi-funding autocrats - 6th June 2017
 * The Libya fallout shows how Theresa May has failed on terror - As home secretary she didn’t see the threat from anti-Gaddafi rebels. And as prime minister, from police cuts to article 50, she’s still making the wrong calls - 27th May 2017
 * Macron’s tragedy is that he still believes in a discredited economic system - The new president sincerely wishes to improve life for the French people. But he cannot see that without radical, far-reaching change it will be impossible - 9th May 2017
 * A Labour tax bombshell is a very good idea: the rich should pay their share - To properly fund schools and hospitals, the left must commit to bold and clear ways of raising extra money - 5th May 2017
 * Extra bank holidays mean little to today’s insecure workforce –​ ​but they should - For the rich, the ‘long weekend’ always meant doing something gratifying. Labour’s headline-grabbing promise of more would be a first step in the move to a low-work society - 25th April 2017
 * Nuclear war has become thinkable again – we need a reminder of what it means - As Trump faces down North Korea, it’s alarming to think that most of the world’s nuclear warheads are now in the hands of men who are prepared to use them - 17th April 2017
 * Could Britain ever fight a just war in Syria alongside Trump? - The answer has to be no – he has no strategy and his team is riddled with people under investigation for links to the Kremlin - 11th April 2017
 * War threats over Gibraltar are rightwing imperial fantasies - Sending ships to southern Spain only makes sense if you buy the delusion that Britain’s future involves rekindling empire, both economically and diplomatically - 4th April 2017
 * Bogus self-employment exploits workers and scams the taxman - Philip Hammond’s national insurance tax grab is a bad idea, but it has highlighted the rise of precarious employment and uneven taxation - 13th March 2017
 * Climate scepticism is a far-right badge of honour – even in sweltering Australia - It’s up to progressives to fight back against this idiocy-promoting rhetoric and save the Earth - 21st February 2017
 * North Korea’s missile test is a high five from one narcissist with bad hair to another - Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump tend to think of nuclear weapons as toys. Who can halt the standoff? - 14th February 2017
 * Trump’s advisers want a new civil war – we must not let them have it - Both Steve Bannon and Newt Gingrich engage in dangerous fantasies about US history – and come to chilling conclusions about the future - 6th February 2017
 * We need a Dump Trump foreign policy – otherwise the UK faces catastrophe - The US president wants Britain to take sides and destroy decades of diplomatic and economic goodwill. Don’t expect Theresa May to make the right choice - 31st January 2017
 * We can escape Brexit doom with one small tweak to free movement - Labour has recognised that free movement is not a basic principle of socialism. But there is a way to restore popular consent for migration without throwing away economic prosperity - 17th January 2017
 * Don’t complain about the strikers – they’re only doing what we all should in 2017 - Follow the posties, train drivers, cabin crews and baggage handlers: demand a pay rise, defend your pension and insist on good working conditions - 20th December 2016
 * Our problem isn’t robots, it’s​ ​the​ ​low-wage car-wash economy - Mark Carney is right that we must stop creating badly paid low-productivity jobs and redistribute wealth – and that will involve unleashing the machines - 13th December 2016
 * The Soviet Union collapsed overnight. Don’t assume western democracy will last for ever - The liberal order could fall apart just as suddenly as the USSR. If we want it to survive, we have to learn from what happened in Russia - 6th December 2016
 * The European elite have developed a death wish - From the French right’s selection of Fillon to the Italian referendum and Austrian election, Europe’s centre is oblivious to its own existential crisis. They might want to dust off their copies of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice - 29th November 2016
 * How do we fight the loudmouth politics of authoritarian populism? - Nearly half of all Brits exhibit views that are anti-immigration, anti-Europe and cynical about human rights. Their politics are rooted in a fear of freedom, the very thing the left and centre must defend - 22nd November 2016
 * Globalisation is dead, and white supremacy has triumphed - Trump’s victory is a betrayal of ethnic minorities and women. Progressives must direct their energies to building an alternative to the failed neoliberal model - 9th November 2016
 * The battle over Uber and driverless cars is really a debate about the future of humanity - Uber drivers were right to claim employment rights. But in a world where driverless cars may soon make them redundant, we face long-term dilemmas about the systems we choose - 1st November 2016
 * Gett off! Why Prince’s archive is an act of defiance against pop industry capitalism - The singer took control over his recordings like no other star, leaving behind a vault which could trickle out over a century – beginning with a reissue of Purple Rain. So, why didn’t he put anyone in charge of it? - 25th October 2016
 * If we don't act now, all future wars may be as horrific as Aleppo - In the world’s war zones, medical facilities are being routinely bombed by Americans, Russians and Saudis. We need more than words from the UN to end this scandal - 10th October 2016
 * How to blag a job in finance: buy some black shoes and ​talk like an aristocrat - It is possible to fake your way into the country’s elite investment banks as long as you can convince yourself that high finance trumps the rule of law, and taxing the rich is futile - 5th September 2016
 * Europe is out to shaft Brexit Britain. Here's how Theresa May can prevent it - The prime minister must kill off the delusion of a ‘giant flounce-out’ from the single market - 29th August 2016
 * Follow the money: how left-behind cities can hold their corporate bullies to account - America’s Hedge Clippers campaign traces how cash flows out of poor communities. We should adopt their tactics in the UK - 23rd August 2016
 * Grammar schools aren’t fit for the world of the future - Grammar schools will reimpose a social divide at odds with technological advances. We need to think more radically about how to change education - 9th August 2016
 * Are we living through another 1930s? - As daunting events come thick and fast amid increasing public racism and xenophobia, the similarities with the buildup to the second world war are real, but we can take hope from a few key differences - 1st August 2016
 * Cameron’s housing legacy was a glut of luxury apartments – Theresa May must clean up ​the mess - In 1951, Winston Churchill’s incoming Tory government pledged to build 300,000 council homes a year – and delivered. If the new regime is serious about social justice, it needs to do something similar - 18th July 2016
 * If despairing remainers try to sabotage the vote, they risk a moral collapse - Legal and parliamentary attempts to ditch democracy – because the other side would not be persuaded – are dangerous. It is a displacement activity for what centrists should be doing now – governing and shaping a pitch with Brussels - 4th July
 * The global order is dying. But it’s an illusion to think Britain can survive without the EU - What happens when the investment banks move to Frankfurt and poor English people must pick strawberries in Kent? We have to find an alternative economic model - 27th June 2016
 * Corbyn delivered the Labour vote for remain – so let’s get behind him - If rebels want to form a new centrist party, they should be open and get on with it. But stop sabotaging the one we have - 26th June 2016
 * Britain is not a rainy, fascist island – here’s my plan for ProgrExit - Social justice and democracy must be at the heart of Brexit negotiations. Progressives must unite to stop the UK turning into a Thatcherite wasteland - 25th June 2016
 * Brexit is a fake revolt – working-class culture is being hijacked to help the elite - Leaving the EU won’t guarantee a rise in wages, a cap on rents, or a fall in NHS waiting times and class sizes. The only thing it guarantees is more rightwing Tory control - 21st June 2016
 * Executive pay is obscene – restructuring the economy is the only way to curb it - The huge sums paid to bosses at Berkeley and Persimmon are the latest examples of FTSE grandee greed, and obvious cures such as pay caps aren’t enough - 14th June 2016
 * How to make James Bond relevant – make him battle Trump and the oligarchs - The new 007 should get political and take on the real-life cat-stroking sadists who would plunge the world into war and climate chaos - 30th May 2016
 * The leftwing case for Brexit (one day) - There are many good reasons for the UK to leave the EU. But exiting now would allow Johnson and Gove to turn Britain into a neoliberal fantasy island - 17th May 2016
 * The choice for Europe: rescue Greece or create a failed state - It’s no longer about austerity. This is a battle for the soul of Europe - 10th May 2016
 * Only Bernie Sanders can break the power of capitalism in the US - Defining the US Democratic presidential race as a choice between economic and social justice was a masterstroke from Hillary Clinton. But Sanders has something that she lacks: the ability to build a movement - 19th April 2016
 * The problem for poor, white kids is that a part of their culture has been destroyed - Thatcherism didn’t just crush the unions, it crushed a story – as the report that says working-class white children go backwards at school proves - 5th April 2016
 * George Osborne’s recovery is in danger: the only option now is to steal Jeremy Corbyn’s clothes - Britain needs a plan to move us away from cheap imports and zero hours contracts. Will the budget deliver? - 15th March 2016
 * BrewDog’s open-source revolution is at the vanguard of postcapitalism - By sharing their recipes, the Scottish-based brewery shows a modern understanding of intellectual property. This approach won’t destroy capitalism, but it does challenge its dynamics - 1st March 2016
 * The Brexit debate offers a flimsy illusion of choice – we need some detail - Every party must spell out what they would do if Britain votes to leave the EU - 23rd February 2016
 * If we want to solve the housing crisis, we must answer these three questions - As housing charity Shelter turns 50, the country is still plagued by overcrowding, rogue landlords, insecure tenancies and homelessness. How do we even begin to make things better? - 9th February 2016
 * Europe’s refugee story has hardly begun - With a million new refugees expected in Europe this year, Greece faces a diplomatic onslaught and an existential crisis - 2nd February 2016
 * How would you pull a Big Short in 2016? - The Oscar-nominated account of 2008’s financial collapse shows us the cunning of the men who profited from the sub-prime crash. So where will today’s mavericks be placing their bets? - 26th January 2016
 * The opening up of Iran will mean a return to barbarity as usual - With the end of nuclear sanctions, Iran’s forces of repression can now get very rich. De-escalation of conflict is welcome, but it will count for little without American support for democracy and human rights - 19th January 2016
 * The strange case of America’s ​disappearing middle class - Middle America is being squeezed from both ends, by the rich and the poor. This new insecurity is fertile territory for the likes of Donald Trump - 15th December 2015
 * We need to be shocked into action about why wealth still dictates life expectancy - There is a vast and growing health inequality between the poor and the well-off, a reflection of the tilted playing field of life - 1st December 2015
 * What would the world look like if we defeated Isis? - After the Paris attacks, the French can impel Nato to attack Isis. But the biggest challenge is what kind of peace we want when we win - 17th November 2015
 * Europe is becoming an undemocratic continent where force matters more than law - 19th October 2015
 * The era of cheap labour is over - An influential new paper predicts that workers are about to become much more powerful. How will capitalism adapt to this newly empowered workforce? - 29th September 2015
 * This is England ’90: when the working class still had hope - Shane Meadows’ drama portrays the last generation of pre-digital working-class youth. The future for them wasn’t pretty - 14th September 2015
 * This refugee crisis is too big for Europe to handle - its institutions are broken - The EU needs a new asylum system based on reality. But without an influx of migrants, it faces a future of economic stagnation - 5th September 2015
 * Ebooks are changing the way we read, and the way novelists write - Our attention spans have shortened, we’re distracted, and authors have changed their style to suit, but these changes are part of the wider digital transformation - 10th August 2015
 * How the man from Toyota’s ‘Five Whys’ could help the Labour party - Labour is in crisis and the leadership battle could see it fall apart completely. Asking itself five simple questions could enable it to address the root of the problem - 27th July 2015
 * The end of capitalism has begun - Without us noticing, we are entering the postcapitalist era. At the heart of further change to come is information technology, new ways of working and the sharing economy. The old ways will take a long while to disappear, but it’s time to be utopian - 27th July 2015
 * Greece's mass psychology of revolt will survive the financial carpet-bombing - Sunday’s referendum is taking place against the background of a kind of financial warfare. If the idea is to terrorise the population, it has only half worked - 4th July
 * Airbnb and Uber’s sharing economy is one route to dot communism - Peer-to-peer platforms have changed the game. Make them cheap or free, and it would be way of reinventing the economy to deliver participation and choice alongside social justice - 21st June
 * Global cybercrime has infected the very soul of capitalism with evil - The global financial system could have been designed to make life easy for tech-savvy crooks and criminals. And the damage they are causing is incalculable - 14th June
 * Young Greek radicals don’t just want power – they want to remake the world - For the new generation of voters, identity and integrity has replaced ideology. So far, they have deferred to the old institutions – but soon they will have to invent new ones - 7th June
 * Fifa was the perfect global monopoly – and its crisis is a parable about the future of capitalism - At the start of the global era it was assumed most countries would become more democratic, but the world’s elite are fairly happy with corruption and prepared to see it rise - 31st May
 * How to turn a liberal hipster into a capitalist tyrant in one evening - A new play, World Factory, asks the audience to run a clothing factory in China – and even the creators have been surprised at how people have behaved - 24th May
 * The ultra-violent world of Mad Max no longer shocks us – it’s too close to reality - Our growing appetite for dystopian movies isn’t hard to fathom. Wars are raging, and real barbarism is all over the internet - 17th May
 * I do not want to be English – and any attempt to create an English identity will fail - After the SNP shock the issue of English national identity will loom large – but it is completely lost in England’s class and cultural divide - 11th May 2015
 * Paying everyone a basic income would kill off low-paid menial jobs - What if everyone in Britain was paid £6,000 a year and didn’t have to look for work? It would mean no more pensions, no basic welfare payments – and a radical new labour market - 2nd February 2015
 * Russia, jihadis or cyberwarfare – which is the most urgent of the new threats we face? - The forthcoming strategic review will force the British military establishment to ask difficult questions. It must separate real threats from imagined ones - 19th January 2015
 * Why the world is like a real-life game of global domination - Five mighty empires across the globe are gearing up for an economic wargame where there could be no winners - 8th December 2014
 * Private schools know how to game elite universities – state-educated kids don’t have this privilege - The system fails bright pupils from ordinary backgrounds. And here’s how we all lose ... - 1st December 2014
 * Are low-paid, outraged workers ready to fight back? - Wages have been falling for years and inequality is growing. But the dissatisfaction of workers may finally force a revolt - 9th November 2014
 * What Shakespeare taught me about Marxism - Without knowing the terms, he described the collapse of feudalism and the emergence of early capitalism - 3rd November 2014
 * Mainstream politics is imploding: is discontent with globalisation the cause? - Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives are losing vital ground to Nigel Farage’s Ukip - 26th October 2014
 * The unending economic crisis makes us feel powerless – and paranoid - The sense that there is no way out is destroying our confidence in dealing with risk - 20th October 2014
 * Scotland and Catalonia are straws in the wind for the whole of Europe - Barcelona’s defiance is just one more example of how resistance to the economic consensus is breaking out in unpredictable ways - 6th October 2014
 * Scotland’s young, feisty Yes generation has nowhere to go - There is a political vacuum in working-class Glagow, which is echoed in English and Welsh cities and across southern Europe - 22nd September 2014
 * China’s workers are turning from analogue slaves into digital rebels - With a wave of strikes co-ordinated on social media, the migrant workforce is using 21st-century tools to fight poverty, corruption and sweated labour - 15th September 2014
 * Something incredible is happening in Scotland. And if the result is a yes vote the shock to the UK will be extreme - The Scots may vote no to independence this time. But history shows these movements intensify until something gives - 1st September 2014
 * The 10 things a perfect city needs - Political unrest, bicycle lanes and sleazy hangouts are a must - 24th August 2014
 * How peaches and propaganda are helping to shape the new world order - Trade sanctions are just the latest weapon in the diplomatic wars threatening global stability - 18th August 2014
 * Truth and propaganda: the other two foes in Gaza's war - Social media connects people in the warzone to the outside world. But we will always need truly independent journalism - 11th August 2014
 * Gaza is not as I expected. Amid the terror, there is hope - The world is not so blessed that it can afford to waste the lives of the 1.8 million Palestinians who live there - 4th August 2014
 * The best of capitalism is over for rich countries – for the poor ones it will be over by 2060 - Populations with access to technology and a sense of their human rights will not accept inequality - 9th July 2014
 * Thomas Piketty's real challenge was to the FT's Rolex types - If the FT's attack on the radical economist's 'rising inequality' thesis is right, then all the gross designer bling in its How To Spend It section can be morally justified - 27th May 2014
 * The graduates of 2012 will survive only in the cracks of our economy - Uniquely, this cohort can expect to grow up poorer than their parents – the human expression of a broken economic mode - 1st July 2012



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 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mason_(journalist)