Opinion / Public Speaking and Speechwriting

Craig Murray Uses The Servants’ Entrance

Former Ambassador turned Conspiracy Theoretician Craig Murray has written something really bizarre about the Bob Quick fiasco: Yet in all the acres of coverage in the newspapers, and all the hype on TV, nobody seems to have noticed the real story. It was an accident that Bob Quick had his […]

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Another Dying Expression

Here is a wannabe high-browish piece about Grand Theft Auto, a cleverly violent computer car-based game appealing to most boys of all ages. The hero of the game is one Niko Bellic, a computerised Balkanite tough egg (Serb?). I suspect that no Serb/Balkan name has a double ll in it […]

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How Words Die: From Foment To Twonk

I have been quietly pestering the FCO about the spelling mistakes on their many websites. They have responded well to an FOI request about the rules/guidance they put round on website standards, sending me various papers. This guidance is pretty good, apart from one 100% incoherent sentence – just a […]

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Britblog Roundup 216: Here

Welcome Britblog Roundup fans to the first BBRU hosted here on my site.   To get into the right frame of mind in compiling the roundup I decided to look back to 20 February 2005.  On that momentous day Tim Worstall launched the first ever Britblog Roundup. Here it is. […]

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Political Blogging: All The News That Doesn’t (Yet) Fit

At the ASI Politics and the Blog event I had a word with Guido to ask how he saw the secret of his success. He said that his own blogging phenomenon had started to grow strongly in 2005 when he had linked a Labour poster attacking Michael Howard to classic anti-semitic […]

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Political Blogging

I sat in this evening on a lively discussion at the Adam Smith Institute on Politics and the Blog. The lead speakers were Guido and John Redwood – a contrast in style and substance. Among those I recognised with my ebbing eyesight were Brian Micklethwait, Tim Worstall, Dr Helen Szamuely and […]

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Shot To Pieces

You are no doubt wondering what a condemned man might look like after being tied to a stake then shot at by a few hundred people with machine guns. The answer? Not much left except a dark red bloody splodge and a strong smell of singed meat. With that thought […]

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A Loathsome Wordless Cartoon Which Says A Lot

Here is a hard-hitting analysis of what is indeed a strange and nasty anti-Israel cartoon by a ‘fiery’ Australia cartoonist, picked up in various newspapers in the USA which (perhaps) ought to know better. This might be said to be a first-class Fisking of a cartoon – taking each element of […]

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Rancid Chicken Yoghurt

Iain Dale has made it to the Orwell Prize shortlist. Here is a tirade against this development: Everywhere you turn there he is doling out another gob of cliche with all the care of a prison kitchen cook slapping down a ladleful of mashed potato on a lag’s tray. An […]

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More Trustworthy: BBC Or Bloggers?

Nick Cohen puts a grammatically challenged question: Who (sic) would you rather trust – the BBC or a blogger? Back in about 1992 I was moved for the first time ever to write a letter to the BBC to complain about a news-clip from South Africa (where I had just […]

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