John Harris



Profile:
Full name: John Harris

Area of interest: Politics, popular culture and music

Journals/Organisation: The Guardian | New Statesman

Email: [mailto:john2009@johnharris.me.uk john2009@johnharris.me.uk] | [mailto:john.harris@guardian.co.uk john.harris@guardian.co.uk]

Personal website: http://www.johnharris.me.uk

Website: Guardian.co

Blog: So now who do we vote for?

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Career: Journalist at music weeklies Sounds, Melody Maker and NME. Features Editor at Q magazine. Editor at Select magazine

Current position/role: journalist, columnist and author


 * also writes/has written for: The Independent, The Times and The Observer

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Broadcast media: occasional member of Newsnight Review panel

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Books & Debate:

 * So now who do we vote for? OCLC238786627, 2005
 * The Dark Side of the Moon: the making of the Pink Floyd masterpiece OCLC60607520; 2005
 * The last party: Britpop, Blair and the demise of English rock OCLC59328342, 2003

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Current debate:Chair: Who owns the progressive future? organised by Soundings journal and Comment is Free, 1st December 2008 

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 * see also: John Harris Election tour of Britain, 2010



Articles: 2012

 * David Miliband and the Labour art of speaking in code - New Labour alumni have taken to surreal new heights the practice of putting out coded messages that appear – to the untrained eye – to say close to nothing at great length - 21st October 2012
 * George Osborne's first class train gaffe: Plebgate act II - Have senior Tories and their aides learned nothing from the past few weeks? Do they think first class fares don't apply to them? - 20th October
 * Our high streets are under attack. We need to fight back - It suits big business for people to believe our town centres are dying. But local campaign groups are uniting to defend them - 15th October
 * The end of men? Cardboard man is dead. Now let's redefine masculinity - A new book is right to highlight the male identity crisis caused by economic change. But where's the manifesto for a new man? - 1st October
 * The housing benefits cap means a wretched life for thousands in B&Bs - Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reform will leave families already on the lowest housing rung with nowhere to go - 17th September
 * WARNING: cannabis causes tedious narcissism - Australian smokers are Instagramming inane weed-related photos. It's one of the best reasons to decriminalise the drug - 13th September
 * Fuming over Frankie Boyle will not erase discrimination - Pseudo media storms over Frankie Boyle's Paralympics tweets obscure real issues about people's rights, wealth and power - 3rd September
 * From Pussy Riot, a lesson in the power of punk - Putin may have more serious critics, but Pussy Riot have shown the west how artistic dissent can still make a difference - 19th August
 * The Beastie Boy who really is a role model – to rock stars - Beastie Boy Adam Yauch's will refuses permission for his music to feature in ads. Even the Clash couldn't manage that - 13th August
 * Ennis, Farah, Murray: here ends the state school myth - This weekend should silence all the talk that only the independent sector can produce top-class athletes - 6th August
 * Politics must respond to this pile-up of corporate disgrace - As global corporations continue to usurp democracy, the left must make more noise and force our leaders to take risks - 23rd July
 * Without festival dads we'd have no festivals -So over-30s are too old to rock? Tell Springsteen, the Stone Roses and an industry that relies on their support - 16th July
 * This cruel welfare system is steadily crushing lives – where is the anger? - No one seems to be concerned that hugely profitable private firms are forcing thousands into borderline destitution - 3rd July
 * Immigration should be a debate about real jobs - Immigration is a divisive issue at whose heart heart lie tensions about security, low wages, and a nasty welfare system - 25th June
 * Leveson matters, and not just to the elite it shames - Leveson, a blockbuster of an inquiry, reveals a political class cut off from the public. In its wake must come a new politics - 11th June
 * Our future is in the hands of men who haven't grown up - In past crises our leaders had age and experience. Now they come across as dilettantes distracted by games on their iPads - 4th June
 * The caravan tax has been cut, but it's no thanks to the sniggering media - The caravan industry is vital to jobs in East Yorkshire and Humberside, but London's media have paid scant attention - 30th May
 * Children with special needs deserve better than a rush to reform - The government's frantic approach to special education threatens vital provision for thousands of children like mine - 21st May
 * Local elections 2012: Thatcherism with a posh accent is a toxic proposition - The Tories aren't in existential crisis, but discontent among voters is focused on the leadership cabal and the issue of class - 5th May
 * The metropolitan milieu's disdain poisons our politics - A roped-off ruling elite sneers at large swaths of the country, but the case for a local government revival is unanswerable - 23rd April
 * This bold donations cap is a glimmer of hope for Labour - Some will try to frame Miliband's proposals on union contributions as a betrayal, but diluting power is all to the good - 16th April
 * Elected city mayors: the delusions and dangers of power freak politics - A comfy consensus has been reached on the merits of elected mayors, despite an absence of any real debate on the issue - 10th April
 * The Tories are no closer to shaking the taint of privilege issue - The Cruddas fiasco, the budget, and even alcohol pricing show how very hollow are their claims of shared sacrifice - 26th March
 * Road privatisation is the latest step in the stripping of Britain's assets - If you wonder where David Cameron's plan to sell off our roads will end up, look at how wealth is torn out of the heart of America - 19th March
 * Pub giants fall into debt, but publicans feel the pain - Pub leaseholders slaving away at £1 an hour are being squeezed by pubcos that are billions of pounds in the red - 19th March
 * How police privatisation was recast as common sense - The insidious, incremental growth of a huge, private shadow state has taken Britain by surprise - 5th March
 * Emma Harrison of A4e's big mistake? Not keeping her head down - Flamboyant opulence and welfare-to-work are not the easiest of fits, and the tension between public services and profit is building - 27th February
 * Emma Harrison: nice work if you can get it - A4e boss Emma Harrison paid herself £8.6m last year. Nothing unusual for a top banker perhaps. But her company is funded by the government to find jobs for unemployed people. And it's being investigated for fraud - 22nd February
 * Opposing free labour doesn't make us 'job snobs', Iain Duncan Smith - I'm all for 'real jobs that worthwhile people do', be they in a supermarket or anywhere else. So let's see those jobs - 22nd February
 * McCartney and Dylan? That's the sound of ageing - Rock may be uncool, but it's not dead – as long as it accepts its new status as the music of the ageing - 20th February
 * Work for free and 'be of benefit' to a multinational like Tesco - A Tesco job advert offering 'JSA plus expenses' reveals the sinister reality of government work experience schemes - 17th February
 * Occupy London: what went wrong? - It gave a voice to the usually ignored, but Occupy's consensual model has seen it too often take the path of least resistance - 14th February
 * If you don't like the way big banks are run, move your money - The bankers' pay issue is not just about Stephen Hester's bonus at RBS. A boycott is a way of tackling the systemic problems - 30th January
 * Self-employed business opportunity? No thanks - David Cameron's support for entrepreneurs can't hide the reality of self-employment, nor mask the erosion of proper jobs - 23rd January



Articles: 2011

 * The scale of the challenge is shocking us into action - Through protest, we are finding a new left politics that can propel glaring iniquities to the centre of public debate - 24th December
 * Here's to Mick Hucknall's amazing voice - Season of goodwill: Admitting I liked Simply Red didn't fit with the NME's Maoist indie conspiracy, but Hucknall's repertoire is studded with triumphs - 21st December
 * Europhobia's no swivel-eyed Tory monopoly - Support for the anti-EU lobby in Britain has risen from 19% to half the population in 10 years. Labour ministers feel trapped - 13th December
 * The euro no longer rocks Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers - Once Jay-Z liked to handle wads of euros. But now top US acts find Europe increasingly uncool - 8th December
 * Britain's economy needs a big push but the Tories can only nudge - Osborne's grand plan to boost growth is a dogma-ridden hybrid that will squeeze the low-paid and rebound on the economy - 29th November
 * Youth unemployment: aspirational talk? All the young hear is a sick joke - If coalition rhetoric is to be believed, the UK is full of optimism. The reality: people are working unpaid in Poundland - 19th November
 * The mainstream of politics risks letting loose the ghouls - Lib Dems no longer occupy the centre left, Labour is mired in the past. And so appears evil genius Nigel Farage - 5th November
 * Breezy optimism in the political bubble. Fear and loathing on Britain's streets - Outside the party conference halls the disconnect between politicians and the public has never been greater - 6th October
 * Now we have to rely on the right to fight the feral rich - Let's hear it for Charles Moore, the Spectator and FT. Their attacks on the feral elite contrast with a virtually silent Labour - 10th September
 * volunteered to work for nothing: a new recipe for the likes of them'' - Cameron and Blair talk of a rump at the bottom of society – rhetoric that suits businesses getting unpaid labour out of it - 24th August
 * are the real looters – rioters or MPs?'' - You help yourself to hundreds of pounds worth of fancy chairs, rugs, lamps – are you not in the same moral ballpark as looters? - 18th August
 * a progressive, David Cameron is sounding very Thatcherite'' - The prime minister's fightback speech failed to display the consistency or understanding needed after last week's riots - 16th August
 * contract to terrify 1.5m people on incapacity benefit'' - A French company is being paid millions to harass incapacity benefit claimants with the threat of being made destitute - 26th July
 * has too much history to be one of austerity's casualties'' - The failed regeneration of Morecambe is a depressing example of how the private sector cannot thrive if the state's hacked back - 22nd July
 * can't just catch a bus to a job that doesn't exist'' - In south Wales it's clear that simply assuming those on benefits could find work is Tory fantasy - 7th July
 * artist will dare break this deathly cultural silence?'' - In the 80s, even Wham! supported the miners. But tomorrow's strike has yet to find any expression in the wider culture - 29th June
 * this be the church to calm our secularist outrage?'' - Anywhere but Westminster: Evangelical worship gets many on the left hostile or awkward. So how do we respond to believers that save the destitute? - 14th June 2011
 * world needs a new Marx, but it keeps creating Malcolm Gladwells'' - The outlook is bleak for many British people. If Labour is to have any relevance, it needs some fresh thinking - 8th June
 * a tiger we musn't feed'' - As Google's claws bite ever deeper, its dominance of the web should be challenged - 3rd June
 * Dover's cliffs are now a no-fly zone for speculators'' - At Cadbury and Manchester United they'd understand the political significance of the people's takeover of Dover port - 18th May
 * hackers and spooks want our heads in the cloud'' - Our unthinking embrace of these giant data centres is throttling the giddy anti-authoritarian computing dream - 26th April
 * John Lewis to workers' co-ops: these Tories love wrongfooting the left'' - The vision Maude and co have for the public sector challenges Labour: what's your alternative – the 1945 way, now and for ever? - 19th April
 * Duffy v Nick Clegg doesn't come close to 'bigotgate''' - Labour patronisingly uses Gillian Duffy for political stunts, yet it's done little to address what lay behind her original face-off - 14th April
 * Clarkson and co are puerile and proud of it'' - The rise of child-men like David Cameron and Jeremy Clarkson suggests an alarming shift in modern masculinity - 1st April
 * 2011: Guardian columnists' verdict'' - 24th March
 * the home of Mini Rolls and Smash was gobbled up'' - Food factory workers facing the the sack will march on Saturday for an economy that values more than just money - 23rd March
 * is dead in the water'' - The party must reach out and participate in a wider centre-left politics if it is to have any kind of meaningful future - 18th March
 * coalition has sneaked a coup on a sleeping public'' - Its project to drastically remodel British society is speeding ahead without any regard for what it told voters last year - 28th February
 * alcohol and the ecstasy: prejudice drowns out sense'' - The government's rank relationship with the drinks industry contributes to a twisted logic that contorts policy on intoxicants - 21st February
 * rotten sort of recovery'' - The coalition's 'flexible' economic model relies on cripplingly low pay and rising job insecurity - 17th February
 * politics is inherently pluralistic – the left needs to be too'' - It makes no sense that Peter Mandelson is allowed to join Compass while someone like Caroline Lucas is excluded - 4th February
 * the sharp end of austerity unions are still our best hope'' - This is a year for unions to find the clout and relevance millions are relying on – not feed the caricatures of Tory papers - 20th January
 * 'We do so much more than shelve books and say shhh''' - The Tories clearly don't know how much libraries do. Cuts will threaten the very social bonds they claim to want to promote - 12th January
 * am a Beatles obsessive. But let's cut the Fabs-worship'' - As John Lennon said, it's just a rock group that split up. But 40 years on the Beatles use so much cultural air no one else can breathe - 4th January



Articles: 2010

 * this Dickensian season, a Victorian clique still rules'' - Austerity, deference and a little charity to the poor: the nation is being recast according to the ancient mores of the upper class - 22nd December
 * can't keep treating party leaders like football managers'' - Miliband faces a wall of cant, ideological hostility and sheer media silliness. Labour shouldn't be fazed by this kind of hounding - 8th December
 * Johnson: enforcer – or mutineer?'' - While Ed Miliband has been on paternity leave, the Blairite old guard has been treacherous - 19th November
 * us map the world outside Westminster'' - Building on my series of films, I'm looking for your views on the impact of political decisions on communities across Britain - 18th November
 * the perfect drug for a brittle and anxious Britain'' - How did the high-rollers' drug of choice become so widely used that the country now tops the European league tables? - 18th November
 * Liar, protest music on fire?'' - After I lamented the lack of pop-cultural voices angered by coalition policies, people were quick to come forward - 11th November
 * out there, please pick up a guitar and howl'' - Public services are being laid to waste and benefits shorn, but popular culture's voice of dissent remains strangely silent - 5th November
 * Miliband's leadership will be lonely, but his politics are sound'' - Of the 49 people who ran for the shadow cabinet, only nine backed this Miliband. He must not let this dilute his radicalism - 8th October
 * right will roar back'' - Don't be fooled by all the leadership election posturing. Saturday will reveal where power lies - 23rd September
 * the zealot: a mindset closer to a pathology than politics'' - New Labour dogma pervades Tony Blair's biography. Bringing it into the leadership race is a depressing mistake - 2nd September
 * Lib Dem civil war? Surely we're forgetting something'' - The party may have been hijacked by a free-market clique – but, as New Labour discovered, there's no glue like power - 25th August
 * the internet is altering your mind'' - A new book claims the amount of time we spend on the internet is changing the very structure of our brains – damaging our ability to think and to learn - 21st August
 * political wizard to a byword for excess. The journey's over for Tony'' - Blair is beset by public opprobrium and his own apparent guilt. Now his gift only highlights New Labour's toxic legacy - 18th August
 * the north-south divide will soon become a chasm'' - We are not all in this together, whatever the metropolitan elite may say. The cuts will be felt most far beyond the M25 - 9th August
 * can Labour do, with the Blairites still in power?'' - From health to education to the BBC, the coalition is putting the former PM's plans into action. The opposition is struggling - 31st July
 * violence: gentleness and decency will survive these vile attacks'' - To see the violence that marred T in the Park and Latitude as some awful fall from innocence does the festivals a disservice - 21st July
 * Democrats should prepare for a bumpy ride'' - Reading the Lib Dem soul is a tricky business, but dissent in the ranks - 18th June
 * the politics of temporary remedies'' - John Gray provides an incisive diagnosis of the modern political malaise – if only our politicians were listening - 5th June
 * new motto: immigration, immigration, immigration'' - Some Labour people have settled on a daft strategy: outflank the Lib-Cons from the right, and so satisfy the proles - 22nd May
 * could pull off the herculean task of leading a Lib-Lab coalition?'' - A Lib-Lab coalition may be in the country's interests, but it would be mauled by terrifying media and corporate forces - 11th May 2010 (Cif at the polls)
 * 2010: Time to revisit Operation Beardy Lefty'' - With a Lib-Lab deal looking like Labour's only hope, why is the party pursuing a scorched-earth policy? - 3rd May
 * jibe exposes disconnect between politicians and voters'' - Labour's political elite has failed to explain social change to ordinary people - 28th April
 * Cameron is a nobody in the north'' - For all Cameron's sink-estate photocalls, mention his name in Liverpool or Glasgow and you begin to wonder if he even exists - 13th April
 * absurd fear of the old left is killing Labour's best ideas'' - In Blairite pathology, even modest manifesto proposals can lead some in the party to see reds under beds - 27th March
 * horror stories offer the left home truths'' - Cases like that of Khyra Ishaq need more than an anonymous 999 call. We have to commune, converse and organise - 16th March
 * Labour's fall, who will be left to engineer its rise?'' - James Purnell has shown that the underground left is vibrant with ideas. Yet the mass exodus of MPs is leaving politics broken - 20th February
 * in five could actually be a winning endorsement'' - A miserable absence of meaning in our politics leaves the public so cold that a party with 20% of the vote could take office - 11th February
 * trouble with the A word'' - 'Aspiration' is worse than just a vapid bit of rhetoric – it betrays an insidious cross-party con trick - 25th January
 * simpler protest than Billy Bragg's wheeze: switch banks'' - You don't have to do a Billy Bragg to register your outrage at bonuses. Just join the Co-op - 20th January
 * without a cause'' - The latest Labour move against Gordon Brown has little to say about policy or political direction – or even why he should go - 7th January
 * Labour now recalls it needs two wings to fly'' - When Brown inevitably goes over the electoral cliff, assumptions about how the party leadership works may fall with him - 5th January



Articles: 2009

 * very British tribute to the troops'' - With events like the Sun's Millies, this year we celebrated our soldiers more than ever, but without 'boasting and flag-wagging' - 23rd December
 * Lib-Lab pact: deep down they know it makes sense'' - It may not be exactly a love-in on the left, but a coalition government is the way to stop Cameron taking us back to 1979 - 16th December
 * day in the sun'' - The utopian ideals of Red Toryism are appealing, but will not survive a clash with political reality - 27th November
 * nervous, noncommittal noughties can't end soon enough'' - In a decade defined by fatalism and impotence, film-makers and writers have been quick to tap into our sense of impending doom - 17th November
 * soul of Kirstie Allsopp may still cost the Tories dear'' - Cameron's victory hinges on his tribe, yet little can rile voters like cut-glass vowels and a strident sense of class entitlement - 27th October
 * off of my tuffet, Muffet'' - I can't lament the demise of nursery rhymes when my three-year-old sings rock'n'roll classics instead - 16th October
 * conference: Sunday'' - Harris's fringe: Labour activists at the conference have been reduced to a hard-bitten rump who refuse to give up - 28th September
 * a Beatles fanatic. But this is just overkill'' - A month of rolling news coverage of the new Beatles computer game and a box-set reissue and I'm sick of the Fab Four - 12th September
 * weird, neurotic leader does not explain Labour's malaise'' - At the core of the party something is unravelling. But it's the Blair project rather than Gordon Brown's psychology - 10th September
 * pirates thrive on a scrap with the analogue crowd'' - The utopia envisaged by some online envangelists would be impoverished creatively, breeding many buskers and no Beatles - 27th August
 * men-in-white tarnish easily'' - I'd love to support Martin Bell and Terry Waite's independent guerrillas, but their wafflesome agenda makes it impossible - 21st August
 * anti-politics merely opens the door to millionaires and careerists'' - The Tories are pushing election primaries as a cure-all for a rotten democracy, but they will lead to a takeover by cash - 17th August
 * and death? Afraid so. It will be Labour's most seismic year since 1981'' - Election defeat will bring the party's most pivotal moment for a generation. Many may jump ship and join forces with new allies - 10th August
 * outsourcing the future, to be built by Thatcher and Philip K Dick'' - Don't be fooled. The drive to privatise goes on. How long till schools, prisons and hospitals all sport flashing corporate logos? - 29th July
 * keeps his cool'' - Andy Coulson gave a fine performance as the editor who knew nothing about NoW phone-hacking. So is he in the clear? - 22nd July
 * final betrayal?'' - We're now in the miserable situation where government ministers look like the most enthusiastic defenders of the City - 27th June
 * love leaves town'' - Like their New Labour fans and counterparts, U2 should take the hint of a dwindling support - 2nd June
 * dark side of Vince Cable'' - The rapturous reception Cable earned at Hay today was expected; the Lib Dem's attack on Alistair Darling was not - 1st June
 * shirts to the fore'' - Many of my friends now see no point in voting Labour, and want to give the Greens more clout - 28th May
 * rule-by-clique'' - A new politics: The first-past-the-post model is as broken as the allowances system. It is time for electoral reform - 20th May
 * Labour's marriage is back on the rocks'' - The McBride affair has divided Labour. But what the party needs now is neither Brownism nor Blairism, but democratic socialism - 18th April
 * to Labour: please think about how it looks'' - It's not just the email smear debacle. Talk of a stitch-up in candidate selection adds to a sense the party is out of touch - 15th April
 * all too familiar plot'' - We were told this crisis would end the country's north south-divide. In fact it's worse than ever - 9th April
 * a hand'' - A last-minute reprieve for the Wirral's libraries shows what can be achieved when local people get together - 6th April
 * libraries are at risk - just when we need them most'' - Lean times are already bringing cuts in services, with little heed to the vital role they play and how they shape futures - 2nd April
 * this dreary sell-off: let creativity deliver Royal Mail'' - Second-class thinking advocates privatisation. But with free market vanities failing daily, it's time to abandon dogma - 25th February
 * demise of Smalls of Spilsby holds a lesson for every high street'' - With local independents bearing the brunt of this recession, our once bustling town centres are turning into dead-zones - 18th February
 * isn't the key'' - Marriage is on the decline, but let's face it: weddings crystallised all the worst aspects of the boom years anyway - 14th February
 * scars are back in vogue with the Big Beasts' revival'' - The greenhorns ready to inherit the political earth will be fretting. Kenneth Clarke's return reflects an appetite for experience - 21st January



Articles: 2008

 * sullying of our songs'' - Pop music lovers should fear for the future as a desperate industry turns into glorified advertising - 16th December
 * can define an era'' - The hugely symbolic Heathrow runway ruling has been delayed, and there is a tiny ray of hope - 5th December
 * way out of the ID folly'' - In recession, the identity cards' cost may be a more compelling obstacle than civil liberties arguments - 28th November
 * we want more representative MPs, we need to start talking about class'' - Unless Labour grasps this core issue all the tough talk on Westminster's narrowing social base will be lost in tokenism - 17th November
 * idiotic, coarse Auntie'' - Ross and Brand's oafish style defiles the airwaves, and to say so is no sop to the authoritarian right - 28th November
 * sell'' - How can it Westfield - and the growing number of giant malls around the country - survive? - 24th October
 * all going to be keeping down with the Joneses now'' - Britons are being nudged closer together by debt, job insecurity, and the realisation that the welfare state has its uses - 22nd October
 * now for the good news'' - The West End's struggling, the art market's faltering ... but might the slump be a boon for culture? - 21st October



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