© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

It is helpful when a piece of party political messaging basically write jokes for you. The ‘deficit’ of course is still rising (useful explainer here) and the NHS reforms appear to involve breaking up a series of institutional powers, who aren’t inclined to go quietly.

Every cartoonist I know enjoyed the general election posters of 2010 because they made so many hostages to fortune, or events, dear boy, events*, as they used to be known.

* And as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan never said.

© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

Speed sketching of characters at the long-running inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press.

© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has announced an initial public offering to those interested in investing in the advertising business. The only question which appears to be worth asking is, what are its 800 million users worth. Time will tell.

© Michael Cross and Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

The Opinions of Tobias Grubbe for 23rd January is published at this window, or click the picture. His patron Journalisted from the Media Standards Trust where you can read all about them.

© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

The PM is due to speak at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today. In the cartoon, Mr Cameron’s baggage is the huge public and large private debt in the UK and which are shown as IOUs stuffed into safes. His big worry is the possible collapse of the Eurozone into which our national economy is very closely linked. All of which probably equals a rough business trip.

The Prime Minister’s speech to The World Economic Forum.

© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

The House of Lords, and specifically its Church of England bishops, have defeated Government proposals on a universal cap on welfare benefits. This Q&A explainer is useful on the issues raised by the plans.

© Michael Cross and Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

The Opinions of Tobias Grubbe is published at this window, or click the picture above. His present patron Journalisted from the Media Standards Trust where you may read all about them.

© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

The two Ed’s in the Labour party have conceded the economic argument with the coalition government has been lost.

This was publicly acknowledged when the shadow chancellor Ed Balls said no future Labour government would reverse the spending cuts which have been announced (if not yet fully implemented) by the Conservative-led  coalition government.

Labour party leader Miliband reinforced the point when he said public sector workers should expect and accept pay cuts in the coming years as  the price of keeping their jobs.

These statements, embarrassing and difficult as they are for any Labour politician, are necessary realism about the state of the national economy after the economic collapse of 2007 and 2008. Even if it was in large part caused by the urgent need to bail out the parts of the bankrupt global financial industry that are based in the UK.

It may, in time, be possible for the Labour party to develop a consistent electable economic position again but it is going to take a while. Happily for them, the new coalition agreement on fixed-term parliaments means they have it. So, it is progress that Labour have agreed, finally, to restart the argument from the right place.

But before the 2015 election campaign Both Ed’s will also be rather occupied with the repeated complaints of some of their large institutional supporters in the Union movement. Their members will have to bear a large part of the burden of the severe austerity measures the government has unleashed (and will presumably continue to do) in the meantime.

© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

Nasty story about cosmetic surgery implants delivered by private healthcare being leaky and unsafe. The arguments over liability for removing or replacing the work will probably really only benefit lawyers.

© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons

Things come around in circles and especially in politics. The latest outburst of post-election defeat bitching reminds of this cartoon from 2006 based on a beer-themed world cup themed advert of the day. The players change but the behaviours tend not too.