Musician and artist Brian Eno is taking a leaf out of Extinction Rebellion’s book and setting up a “non-violent” climate group. Hard Art will be made up of 150 artists, activists, technology leaders, economists and scientists. Artists Es Devlin, Cornelia Parker and Jeremy Deller, pictured, are joining Eno. Director Danny Boyle is also involved. Eno says he came up with the name after talking to two leading members of Extinction Rebellion.
The project evolved from dinner party conversations at Eno’s studio among his influential and creative friends, before turning into a group meeting twice a month. “I came up with the idea of the word ‘scenius’, the intelligence of a whole community,” Eno said. The new Hard Art website says its members will stand “in solidarity in the face of climate and democratic collapse.” While we don’t expect to see Eno blocking roads or glueing himself to Tube carriages any time soon, his career has certainly been full of surprises.
Boris Johnson makes friends in Canada
He’s back (again). Boris Johnson was in Ottawa this week on another of his many foreign speaking engagements, often lucratively paid. This time the ex-PM, seen with Canadian climate change minister Steven Guilbeault, was sounding off about the war in Ukraine and other global affairs. But he also made time to take a dig at his successor-but-one Rishi Sunak, the man who helped end his political career, for trying to clamp down on smoking in the UK.
“When I look at some of the things that we are doing now, or that are being done in the name of conservatism, I think they are absolutely nuts,” he guffawed. “When the party of Winston Churchill wants to ban cigars, donnez-moi un break, as they say in Quebec. It’s just mad.” That’s an interesting pidgin-French phrase — the last time he deployed it was in 2021 during a spat with French president Emmanuel Macron. Back then, Johnson was riding high in the polls and dreamed of another decade in power. The joke got more laughs in those halcyon days, but we can forgive him for playing his greatest hits.
Rayner’s tax gets Tory backlash
It’s the scandal that has set the country alight with rage! Well, not quite. While Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner has questions to answer over her tax affairs, it has not been leading the news. So we were surprised to see a protest by members of the public in Teesside this week, where Rayner was on a visit. Outside a pub she had stopped at, locals appeared with a banner, pictured right, which read: “Angela Rayner: tax dodger?”
Just concerned citizens? Maybe, but it turns out some of them are also Conservative councillors. One, John Coulson, told Byline Times the protest had been orchestrated by “others” in the party. It seems higher-ups are very keen to keep this story rolling on. Rayner is under fire for selling a house without paying the capital gains tax that would have been due if it was not her main address. She says it was, her neighbours say otherwise.
