GCSEs: sloppy grammar will cost pupils’ one in 10 marks Pupils face losing more than one in 10 marks in their GCSEs for poor spelling and grammar amid fears that too many teenagers start work with poor literacy skills. Helpful story and excellent government policy-shift. But amazing how the Telegraph’s […]
Sign up for the UK Speechwriters’ Guild 2011 Conference in Bournemouth. List of speakers and themes are here. I am leading a session on Writing Speeches in English for Non-Native Speakers. Last year’s event was impressive. If you are at all interested in learning a lot about speechwriting, public speaking and […]
Here is the later part of my Commentator piece this morning on Libya, featuring some thoughts on chess and politics – and why the usual clever moaners are wrong again: … slowly and surely and with a lot of pain the capacity of the Gaddafi loyalists to hold out was […]
Here is my latest LSE book review of a tome exploring the exotic world of rumours – how they spread, what they mean, and what might be done about them: The Global Grapevine: Why Rumours of Terrorism, Immigration and Trade Matter. Gary Alan Fine and Bill Ellis, OUP 2010 My […]
That letter from President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel to Herman van Rompuy (President of the European Council) has shaken rather than stirred the word’s financial markets. I thought it worth a detailed look. But Protesilaos Stavrou has done it for me. Here is his thorough and interesting fisking by someone close […]
That used to be the slogan for corrupt Oxford University student politics elections, and for all I know still is. If you want to vote for (or against) this blog in the Total Politics 2011 Blog Survey, press on and do so. Read the rules first. You must vote for […]
Current Drudge Front Page: WHHHHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!DOW PLUNGES ANOTHER 419 POINTS
I have just voted in the 2011 TP Blog Survey. This in principle is a commendable effort intended in part to help pull together the UK’s master-list of UK political bloggers, for anyone who’s interested. But any lists require some sort of arbitrary categorisation (more or less logical or not). […]
Here’s one cutesy Londoner who superficially has everything going for her. Apart from a brain and rudimentary self-control. Meet the pitiful Chelsea Ives, London Olympics Ambassador. Her heroic parents turned her in to the police: There were a lot of tears. She did not try to stop us phoning the police, […]
Yes, the time to vote in the TP survey comes round again. Here’s the link if you want to put in a good word for this site. You also must vote for four other UK blogs – Anna Raccoon and Tim Worstall will do for starters.
