So here I am at the LBC newsroom on Leicester Square in London. The ‘story’ seems to be a number of complaints that in some places the polls closed before all voters there had voted. Hard to imagine that this happened on any scale that mattered. Otherwise my task is […]
Some random thoughts on latest dramatic developments in the UK, all the more random for lack of sleep. First the Really Good News. As for the feverish politics, note the following. It is not only that the new Parliament is ‘hung’, ie no party has an overall majority. It is […]
With Nick Drew and others, I’ll be joining Iain Dale on LBC tomorrow night from midnight through to 0600 on Friday to offer thoughts on the UK elections. My niche will be foreign thoughts/angles. If any readers out there – especially people overseas – want to send in any observations […]
Election Day across the UK looms. The Labour Party are set to lose power. Hurrah. But will they lose badly enough to be obliterated? Or somehow only enough to stay in business and start scheming anew after some ritual blood-letting? Here’s my own New Labour Story. I joined the FCO […]
Here is the long Mail Online account of the encounter between Gordon Brown and Mrs Gillian Duffy. It squeezes more than maximum juice out of this fleeting encounter, yet the words of Mrs Duffy and the accompanying pictures are touching: ‘There’s been a development,’ she was told by a reporter from […]
Tim Collard, (a retired British diplomat who spent most of his career in China and Germany. He is an active member of the Labour Party) offers a jeer in the Telegraph at William Hague’s sensible comment on the FCO Popegate fiasco: William Hague, who expects to be in charge in King […]
I did not get it quite right in ascribing responsibility for the FCO/Pope fiasco to young officer Steven Mulvain. It looks instead as if a more senior colleague, one Anjoum Noorani, is the Guilty Man. Here is the Telegraph account: Mr Noorani, who, like Mr Mulvain, is a graduate of […]
Update: More here. * * * * * Looking this morning on the FCO’s website for the official statement of grovelling apology over the infamous Pope Visit memo, I spotted this horror: 12 Feb: The Chandler’s – FCO’s position misrepresented Under Latest News, nothing. So, over to the mainsteam media. […]
Let’s start with a brilliant resource for all Brit bloggers: localmouth, a way to find local blogs wherever you are in the UK. Hover somewhere near Oxford and you might find mine. A wonderful example of the way intelligent networked pluralism helps mobilise human creativity without busybody official statist help. […]
President Lech Kaczynski and Maria Kaczynska have been buried with the highest Polish honours in Cracow. Some memories of people whom I knew on the doomed flight to Smolensk. Such as former young communist Jerzy Smajdzinski who adapted well to democracy and rose to become Poland Defence Minister. I recall […]
