Politics
Which words would you ban?
Which words in current use would you ban? Lake Superior State University answers this question each year, with its famous ‘List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English… Continue reading
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Sean O’ Brien: Poetry is political, all writing is political
Sean O’ Brien was born in London in 1952. Shortly afterwards, he moved to Hull, where he grew up, thus firmly cementing an allegiance to the North of England: a… Continue reading
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Mo Yan’s malignant apology for ‘necessary’ censorship
The Chinese writer Mo Yan collected the Nobel Prize for Literature last night. In his acceptance lecture, he reiterated his view that a degree of censorship is ‘necessary’ in the… Continue reading
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Simin Daneshvar, Persia’s first female novelist and hope for Iran’s future
There is a Persian proverb which states that ‘books are a man’s best friend.’ Persian literature from the kings of antiquity to the last Shah of the Peacock Throne has,… Continue reading
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Barack Obama’s best voice: Michael Grunwald
No Obama policy – not even ‘Obamacare’ – has been derided quite as much as his stimulus package and the $787 billion Recovery Act passed in February 2009. It became… Continue reading
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Kate Middleton pregnant, the world reacts
Ask not where I was when I heard that the Duchess of Cambridge was pregnant, ask rather where I was when Miss Khloé Kardashian, of the Californian Kardashians, shared her… Continue reading
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The end is neigh: even Jilly Cooper has dumped Dave
It has been a rough few days for David Cameron. First he was drubbed at the polls in last week’s by-elections. Then little Alan Titchmarsh said that the Tory party… Continue reading
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300 years of hating party politics
‘Whig and Tory Scratch and Bite’, by Aaron Hill Whig and Tory scratch and bite, Just as hungry dogs we see: Toss a bone ‘twixt two, they fight, Throw a… Continue reading
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How to improve the Work Programme
Everyone who has been involved in the Work Programme has been warning ministers for some time that there were serious problems with this flagship policy. As this is the opposite… Continue reading
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I spy spice
Two thousand spice lovers crossed the river last night for the enormous British Curry Awards at Battersea Evolution. Between dousing my tongue with milk to calm the fiery dishes, I… Continue reading
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Free Catalonia!
OMG to Catalonia! (Geddit?; I’m quite proud of that. Pathetic, I know). A congenial centre-right and far left alliance in Catalonia should see Spain cease to exist as an entity… Continue reading
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Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain
In his new book Classified: Secrecy and The State In Modern Britain, Dr Christopher Moran gives an account of the British state’s long obsession with secrecy, and the various methods… Continue reading
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When ‘boycott’ isn’t quite the right word
Boycott Amazon was the message from Margaret Hodge MP in last weekend’s Observer. This comes in the wake of new revelations about just how little UK tax is paid by… Continue reading
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The death of principle
If you only have time to read one full length newspaper piece today, read this one by George Bridges, the former backroom Tory guru and CPS director. It is a brilliant,… Continue reading
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The Church of England is becoming a church in England
This morning’s newspapers (and indeed the airwaves) are full of apocalyptic predictions about the future of the Church of England. The failure of the General Synod to ordain women bishops has… Continue reading
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Wole Soyinka: Boko Haram must be destroyed
Born in 1934 in Nigeria, Wole Soyinka is the author of more than twenty plays, ten volumes of poetry, two novels, seven collections of essays and five autobiographical works. He… Continue reading
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Picking sides in Syria, the Algerian experience
Some thirty-five years ago, in 1977 to be exact, I first published A Savage War of Peace, a definitive history of France’s war in Algeria. The war dragged on from… Continue reading
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Writing the Tory Wars
On starting a new job at Westminster in the early 2000s, and despondent about my party’s lot, I began to write a political novel. Aspiring writers are told to write… Continue reading
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The politics of poppies
The politics of poppy-wearing shift slightly each year. The unofficial rule used to be that poppy-wearing began at the start of November. In recent years this has crept forward further… Continue reading
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Nostalgia fest
Yowser! It’s the mid-1990s all over again. I half expect to hear Ace of Base blaring out of a thousand Ford Cosworths. The Tories are split down the middle on… Continue reading
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