So, Tony has gone, and now Gordon is with us. How will things change? We don’t know, of course; but we can hope.
And it’s only fair to pay tribute to Blair’s accomplishments; for they are many, and many of them are good. Unfortunately, there are many that are not.
Hmmm, have I said [...]
Ah, Joe. I can hardly believe that it’s already four years since we lost him. I started reading this on Christmas day, and finished at about two in the morning on the 14th of January: exactly three weeks later. If I read a book every three weeks that would be seventeen in [...]
Well, well, well. Maybe things will get better after all:
Jack Straw, widely expected to replace John Reid as the home secretary, today clearly signalled that the future of the national identity card scheme would be in the melting pot when Gordon Brown becomes prime minister next month.
Mr Straw – who is Mr Brown’s leadership [...]
So there we have it: Tony will soon be gone. I had forgotten some of the good things: the minimum wage; civil partnerships (though why not for het couples?); the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly; the London Mayor and Assembly; Northern Ireland, of course. Even the hunting and smoking bans.
But Iraq; the dodgy [...]
He could have been great, you know.
We could be sitting here now, raising a glass to the end of the reign of Britain’s greatest Prime Minister of the (loosely-bounded) century, if not ever. It wouldn’t have been hard. Look at the two before him: after they had finished their slash-and-burn attack on the [...]
Sometimes I write these things and don’t post them immediately, and then they seem wildly out of date. But it’s still worth putting them out there. Blogging doesn’t have to be completely reactive. Sometimes it should take the longer-term, contemplative view. So I offer this.
It seems obvious to me that, if [...]
Totally not sure about this one. Someone emails their MP and gets an accidentaly-sent response (in the MP’s name? Not sure) calling the constituent’s mother-in-law “snotty”, and saying, effectively, “don’t rush to answer this, since they don’t like the government.”
So far, so unsurprising (though your attitude towards the government should not affect the [...]
I started writing this post while watching This Week again. This time they were talking, inevitably, about the new equal rights legislation (good legislation; from this government? Amazing.) The Catholic church is trying to have itself made exempt from the new law; and the Church of England has come out alongside it. [...]
This Week, BBC1’s late-night political discussion programme, had a piece last night from Colonel Tim Collins, who used to be “Britain’s most senior soldier in Iraq”. He was saying that Saddam Hussein should hang as soon as possible, and that we should have the death penalty in Britain.
I won’t reiterate the many general arguments [...]
To Glasgow, then, and a weekend visit to my Mum. The kids and I caught the train to Stansted on Friday afternoon, to find the security theatre in full force. Although we made EasyJet’s last checkin time with a good ten minutes to spare, I really thought we would miss our flight when [...]