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Quote For The Day

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

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“Be yourself. Do your work. And they will find you. And serving those readers is all the reward you need.”

– Andrew Sullivan, at the time of his recent retirement from blogging.

 

This blog will continue to provide rigorous, semi-partisan political commentary through the remainder of the 2015 British general election campaign and beyond.

(I will be live-blogging the election results on Thursday night, here).

This blog will never serve as cheerleader for any one political party, but will continue to proudly champion the interconnected causes of personal liberty, economic freedom and national sovereignty – and give credit where credit is due to any party or politician who is willing to pick up the tarnished torch of liberty in an increasingly hostile environment.

Many thanks to all those people who include Semi-Partisan Sam in their daily internet reading – both those who have recently discovered the blog and those few who have been reading since Day 1.

2014 in review

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 15,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

After Another Hard Year, We Need A British Thanksgiving Holiday

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

Thanksgiving soup kitchen SPS

The time has come to institute an annual British Thanksgiving holiday

Take a trip to your friendly local Asda superstore in the next day or so and you will be treated to back-to-back in-store announcements about their upcoming Black Friday sale. “Get ready for Black Friday!” chirps the voiceover, as a cheerful, disembodied man tempts you with sweet promises about this magical event of a retail experience. Yes, Black Friday is coming to Britain.

This is as strong a contender for Tasteless Corporate Act of the Year (Large Retailer category) as we are likely to witness this side of Christmas. Asda, owned by Wal-Mart, has successfully imported the grubby, commercially lucrative, post-coital rump of a cherished American national holiday – Thanksgiving – while neatly skipping over all the pesky fundamentals that give it meaning in the first place: you know, those interminably dull things such as love, family, gratitude and patriotism, tiresome distractions that will never generate a good Return On Investment.

Earlier this year, I took part in a TV debate on London Live, arguing that we should absolutely not make the festivals of Eid and Diwali UK public holidays, for fear of muddying the cloudy waters between religion and state yet further:

 

I was outnumbered, but I made the case as strongly as I could that what Britain desperately needs is a public holiday that can bring us all together as one people – not another cynical, politically correct nod to multiculturalism.

The possibilities for such a unifying British public holiday are endless – after all, what other country has as rich a history on which to draw when trying to choose a new national holiday? I suggested a few potential examples at the time of the debate, but my list is by no means exhaustive. Britain has achieved so many military, scientific, cultural and social victories that continue set us apart as a truly exceptional, indispensable nation, the only difficulty would be narrowing the crowded field to a single expression of who we are and what we have accomplished.

But this year, perhaps more than ever, we need a British Thanksgiving holiday. Despite Britain’s economic recovery, many of us continue to live in the long, cold shadow of the great recession, with squeezed, stagnant or non-existent wages spread too thinly to pay for the basics and comforts of life. As our mainstream political parties scrap over the elusive centre ground and ideologically merge with one another, the British people themselves are becoming increasingly polarised and less able to empathise with or respect those with differing political views. There is a steady trickle of young, disaffected British Muslims who feel so little allegiance to their mother country that they are stealing away to Syria to pose with guns, play soldier and fight for ISIS. And it was less than three months ago that our United Kingdom nearly tore itself apart for good, as Scotland came unnervingly close to voting to secede from the union.

Whatever the improving economic indicators say, all is not well in today’s Britain. Whether you are indignant about ongoing austerity or mad as hell about uncontrolled immigration and its effect on the labour market, chances are that you believe Britain is on the wrong path, and are probably also sceptical that things will significantly improve in the near future. Now, of course giving Britain’s hard workers another statutory day off every year won’t make all of these problems go away. But if we picked the right day, selected the right cause or event to commemorate our shared British civic heritage, it might just shore up the foundations a little bit and help us to ride out the storm together.

Americans continue to faithfully observe their national Thanksgiving holiday in good times and bad, showing the world that it doesn’t necessarily require a fat wallet to get together with loved ones and be grateful for what we have. But perhaps we British need an extra reminder of this fact – we tend to obsess a lot more than our American cousins about what we should be getting from the government, be it benefits or public services, and are consequently more likely to feel continually aggrieved and bitter at the inevitable shortfall. Maybe it would do us all good if we had imposed on us a day where we were strongly encouraged to think about our blessings, and the difference that we – not government – can make in the lives of our fellow citizens.

For the sceptics out there, there is ample precedent for starting a new holiday – Canada has also long observed a day of thanksgiving, though its present position in the calendar was not fixed until 1957. American expressions of thanksgiving were also sporadic and uncoordinated until President Abraham Lincoln fixed the date as the final Thursday in November, while the Civil War still raged. These timings proved wise – contemporary Thanksgiving in North America acts as a bulwark against the encroachment of Christmas, and stores only get into the swing of Christmas once the Black Friday sales are over, a state of affairs which would be very welcome here.

Wouldn’t a British Thanksgiving be the perfect antidote to the incessant commercialisation and forward creep of Christmas, the decorations raised in late September, supermarket mince pies that expire in November, discordant Christmas songs blasting out from every shopfront and the inevitable, vapid re-release of “Feed The World”?

After a long, hard recession, a bruising recovery and a year in which the idea of what it means to be British has become increasingly muddled and uncertain, let’s humble ourselves and dare to take a lesson from our former colony. Let us find inspiration in our storied history, our unsurpassably rich culture and also from within our own hearts. Let us find that elusive common thread of Britishness that should unite us all, transcending race and religion and politics, and cling to that thread in these difficult times.

And even though gratitude does not always come easily and the words may sometimes stick in our throats, let us remember to give thanks for one another, and for our United Kingdom, the guarantor and protector of all that we have.

 

Thanksgiving Proclamation - Abraham Lincoln

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Music For The Day

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

 

A Gaelic Blessing, by John Rutter.

In memory of my dear friend Andy Pook, who passed away on 2nd November 2014 and whose uplifting presence is so sorely missed, more than any words of mine can express.

Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you
Deep peace of Christ,
of Christ the light of the world to you
Deep peace of Christ to you

Andy Pook Samuel Hooper SPS

A Semi-Partisan Pledge Drive

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Semi Partisan Sam Donations

 

It is now more than two and a half years since I started this blog, primarily to spare weary Facebook friends from being continually subjected to my forceful and not always fully-cooked opinions on every new political story coming out of London and Washington, D.C.

Back in March 2012, the Republican primary campaign was still underway in America and this blog was cheering for Ron Paul as loudly as it was denouncing the seductive paternalism of Rick Santorum, for all the difference it made to either of their fortunes. Closer to home in London, this blog was weighing in with exasperation on Britain’s achingly slow planning process and the question of where to increase London’s airport capacity in order to remain a competitive global city – an argument that still rumbles on, perpetually unresolved. And of course there were calls for lower, flatter taxes on both sides of the Atlantic.

Hopefully regular readers will have noticed a marked improvement in the quality of the output since those early posts, and especially since the spring of 2014 when I was fortunate enough to complete my journalism training with The Big Issue and Poached Creative.

New posts are less frequent, but longer-form and (hopefully) more thoughtful. Gone are the picture posts and “Best Thing Of The Day” type updates, which were never very good and which other sites do far better – though the classical music posts may soon make a comeback. And best of all, there is now some exciting and unique primary journalism in the mix as well as the traditional reaction and commentary on developing political news stories.

One story in particular – my coverage of the People’s Assembly March Against Austerity back in June – received widespread attention and acclaim from senior journalists and establishment figures across the political spectrum. Not everyone agreed with the conclusions I drew from covering the overlooked London anti-austerity demonstration, but there was a general consensus that my coverage raised some important questions.

With this improvement in the blog’s output have come new opportunities to make the case for maximal personal freedom and limited, effective government to a wider audience. I am now a regular contributor to London Live TV’s Headline London lunchtime news programme, where they seem to like my no-nonsense, generally libertarian outlook on local and national politics. Further opportunities to provide semi-partisan analysis on television and various political websites are also in development.

But with new opportunities come new challenges. Making a career change into journalism and updating this blog on anything like a regular basis – in between doing a day job – is long, difficult work. Carrying out the kind of primary journalism which can drive or contribute to the news cycle is even more demanding in terms of time and money.

I have concluded at present that the time spent writing and honing pitches to the likes of The Guardian newspaper for freelance work is not worth the investment and frequent 2AM bedtimes – it significantly detracts from blogging time with no guarantee that the story will be picked up (I am currently 0-5 for such article pitches, at a cost of countless wasted hours of effort).

Therefore, I have taken the decision to turn directly to my readers to help fund this blog’s next initiatives.

Semi-Partisan Sam has received press credentials to cover the upcoming UKIP party conference in Doncaster later this month. With all of the current upheavals in British politics – the Scottish independence referendum, UKIP’s performance in the local and European elections and the upcoming Clacton by-election – this promises to be a political convention like no other in recent times.

This blog has covered the rise of UKIP extensively, well before more mainstream outlets began taking a real interest and registering their panic at the thought of UKIP MPs sitting in Parliament following the 2015 general election. But unlike much of the mainstream media, this blog has sought to understand the legitimate motivations of UKIP supporters rather than dismissing them as bitter, prejudiced and economically left-behind simpletons. And though this blog does not share the anti-immigration hysteria of some UKIP activists and supporters, it does find common cause with UKIP’s message of returning power back to a democratically accountable level in Westminster, and acting decisively in the UK’s national interest.

I hope that my coverage of the UKIP conference will not only be illuminating, but will provide an antidote to the inevitable distortions, mischaracterisation and hysteria that most newspapers have demonstrated to be the extent of their interest in covering the rise of Britain’s new third party.

But to achieve these ambitions and more, additional resources are required.

Regular readers who enjoy reading Semi-Partisan Sam, and who believe that journalism should offer more than a binary choice between the partisan filters of the cozy Westminster elite on one hand and dumbed-down Buzzfeed-style listicles on the other, are invited to make a donation (of whatever amount you choose) to help fund my ongoing work, including – but not limited to – coverage of the upcoming UKIP party conference.

Your donation will help to defray some of the considerable costs of travel, accommodation, internet and subscription services whilst on-site, and a necessary investment in new audiovisual technology (a DSLR camera and microphone of the type on which I trained with the Big Issue) so that all those interviews and pictures come to life in glorious HD rather than the shaky iPhone footage which has had to suffice thus far.

Additionally, at a time when newspapers are closing down and journalism of all forms is under huge pressure to participate in a race to the bottom in search of clicks and web traffic above quality reporting and analysis, your donation will make a small but important stand for quality, truly independent new journalism.

You can make a donation conveniently and safely via PayPal, here:

But more than anything else, if you ever read something here that makes you stop and think, shake your fist in furious disagreement or helps you to see an issue in a new light, please take a moment to pass it on by sharing it with your networks on social media, and contributing your own thoughts via the Comments function. The sharing buttons can be found at the bottom of each article, while the “Leave a Comment” button appears on the left side of the screen below the tags.

In just 30 months, Semi-Partisan Sam has gone from being an overflow space for political rants too long for Facebook and of wildly uneven quality, to a budding journalistic enterprise with (hopefully) real potential for the future. Thank you all for reading, clicking, sharing and commenting.

And a special thanks to those of you who are able to financially contribute to the next chapter of this blog’s growth.