The BBC asks a good question. Why has Eton produced so many MPs and PMs? With its Victorian-era uniform, and rules dating back through the centuries, Eton is often perceived as a rigid, conformist institution. But according to Nick Fraser, author of the book The Importance of Being Eton, the […]
Remember Geoff Jones? He dropped by today as part of his latest long walk, this time along the Thames Path. Always a pleasure to meet a cheerful fellow blogger in meatspace. Geoff urged on me the merits of Twittering. I can move on from you mere Readers, to accumulate massed Followers! […]
Will the Eurozone move to help the UK if we fall into difficulties? Hell no: Jean-Pierre Jouyet, a former French Europe minister and the current chairman of France’s financial services authority, yesterday predicted only "God would help" a rudderless Britain after it snubbed its euro zone neighbours. "There is not […]
Update: The EU (improbably) as … Dirty Harry. Click through to the wonderful link. * * * * * If I were a diplomat from Mars reporting back to HQ on the wheeler-dealings of the pitiful earthlings in this part of the planet, I’d be starting to suggest that the […]
Do our political leaders think about the reality of the difficulties we face as they haggle over the results of the election? The policies of Gordon Brown as trumpeted by Blair/Mandelson/Miliband/Polly for more than a decade have been ruinous beyond any calculation. The very fact that senior Lib Dems are […]
The grim machinations unfolding in and around Westminster are merely what would happen every election if we had some sort of more ‘proportional’ voting system. In countries where coalition politics is the norm governments can take many weeks, sometimes even months, to form. This wastes time and demoralises the public. It […]
The latest BBRU is hosted by Matt Wardman – with added Election Geekery.
Look at the pitiful spectacle of Greek civil servants and sundry Communists (insofar as those two categories are not identical) wailing about their country’s plight: "We want to send a message to the people of Europe," said Panagiotis Papageorgopoulos, a communist party official marching with the protesters. "We can take […]
Even before any new coalition or understanding is set up here between Conservatives and Lib Dems and/or anyone else, the awful reality of European Union processes intrudes. The Guardian makes a crude lunge to create divisions right from the start: Tory-Lib Dem coalition threatened by secret hardline memo on Europe […]
Question What’s the only thing on any political party’s mind after winning an election? Answer The next election Why? What else do political parties think about? Having won an election because their policies and style had the most appeal, the winners think only about how best to […]
