Here’s a piece by me over at The Commentator which looks at the slippery ideas concerning what we ‘deserve’. In the context of walloping the latest confused burblings against Ayn Rand, this time from the Guardian’s potted collectivist George Monbiot. Me: Lordy! Another wild swipe at AynRand, this time from […]
Thanks to the democratic miracle of #Twitter I have ended up in an unlikely place, namely the website of Labour Teachers (Labour at the chalkface). I was pointed in this direction by a Tweet picking up on my Commentator piece about teaching grammar. And there I find a really good […]
A good Guardian newsfeed on the developments in Moscow as demonstrators are arrested gives us this: Andrei Buzin, an election expert at Golos, said that the falsifications were not widespread enough to have left Putin with less than 50% of the vote and require a run-off, but the vote was […]
A new award is launched! This time for UK Business Speaker of the Year. With prizes! Thus: Anyone over 18 years can take part, and all you need to do is send a 60 second audition video to us explaining your ‘inspirational business message for our times’ Hmm. Perhaps I […]
Here’s my piece at Telegraph Blogs this morning on the Russian Presidential elections: One reason why Zyuganov is doomed never to win an election in Russia lies in the country’s problematic demographics. Thanks in part to Putin’s policies, the gap between the number of Russians being born every month and […]
Leading UK journalist Angus Roxburgh has written a book about Putin and Putinism, drawing on his extensive experience in Russia (including a stint as a media adviser to the Putin team): The book is good in revealing all sorts of fascinating stories about the Putin period. My favourite is the […]
Over at the Commentator I have been offering some thoughts on grammar and good English: What to make of this claim that grammar lacks "encoded rules"? First, the trivial logic point. It does not follow that because a language evolves and is necessarily always changing, there is not at any […]
As Russians vote in elections likely to return Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin as President, check out some Russian elections videos (h/t RFE/RL). First, one in which Apple products are used to show how hot modern Russian girls just lluuuurrrrvvvv Mr Putin: Or there’s this one in which a young […]
The story that emails sent from Education Secretary Michael Gove’s wife’s email account might count as official emails for Freedom of Information purposes rumbles on. This is an interesting point: Department for Education spokesman said: “Emails are not automatically considered an official record. Special advisers are not required to maintain […]
Fame! My piece on Speechwriting and Spontaneity has been picked up by leading US speechwritings experts Inkwell Strategies: The crux of Crawford’s argument is that speakers and their audiences value authenticity above all else. The best way to achieve that, he says, is to craft a speech in a way […]
