Dear James,
The vast majority of us are innocent of history. Things that look small in our everyday lives eventually prove themselves to be of huge historical importance. Larger events prove themselves over the long-term as insignificant.
Read MoreDear James,
The vast majority of us are innocent of history. Things that look small in our everyday lives eventually prove themselves to be of huge historical importance. Larger events prove themselves over the long-term as insignificant.
Read MoreBoris has a new base and I’m not referring to his posterior. It is the North and the Midlands and consists of all those traditional Labour seats which so comprehensively abandoned Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday. Boris and his new base will make strange bedfellows. No doubt they will start off co-habiting. But will it ever lead to a real marriage?
Read MoreLast night was a great night for democracy. With unwavering accuracy it identified the central problem of our nation with pinpoint accuracy. Bolsover, Bishop Auckland, the Don Valley and Workington in Cumbria are just a few of the prime Labour seats, some dating back to well before the second world war, that have gone to the Conservatives.
Read MoreDear James, Do you have a soul? Or is the soul some out dated concept left over from our mediaeval past? Certainly no one has found it yet, discovered it with MMR techniques or revealed it through x-ray crystallography. It has no location, no scientific identity, no way to measure its dimensions or its activity levels. And yet…
Read MoreAn American friend has sent me an article from the Wall Street Journal. The author, Joseph Sternburg, claims that Brexit is not really about Brexit. ‘Brexit is only one of several possible pathways by which Britain might reach whichever state of good or bad governance it attains next.’ How right he is.
Read MoreA terrible choice has been laid before the British electorate in what has been a shoddy and shabby election. Full of empty promises and forests of money trees, last night the two main party leaders held their final head-to-head debate and demonstrated how unsuited both are for the highest position in the land.
Read MoreYesterday, the BBC’s Andrew Neil issued Boris with a challenge. Mr Johnson gives every impression of being frit as he continues to refuse to face Mr Neil, so I am asking you James to answer on behalf of your cowering leader. And what better better way than to let Mr Neil pose the questions himself. Are you sitting comfortably James?
Read MoreIt’s typical of your leader. Come up with a memorable line and pursue it until the simile or metaphor crashes into its own contradictions. Boris’s current choice phrase is ‘oven ready’. His deal is ‘oven ready’. The future trade deals which…
Read MoreLast night Channel Four aired a debate on climate change and invited the leaders of all the parties to participate. All leaders appeared except for Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. In their place Channel Four placed two ‘empty chairs’ in the form of ice sculptures of the planet which, of course, slowly melted during the debate.
Read MoreSo you have been found out. Both of you, Tories and Labour alike. Fingers in those cookie jars. Telling fibs again. Swirling those veils. Trying to pull a fast one. Lighting up those future uplands with more huff and puff, more huster and bluster. Because, no matter how we try to say it James,
Read MoreYour Tory Party local brochure plopped through the letterbox this morning. Apart from the full frontal of you standing by the ford at Kersey, I counted 47 separate photographs of your good self grinning endlessly into the camera in a variety of local contexts. I am afraid that I am not impressed.
Read MoreI have to be honest. I’m not much interested in the flurry of manifestos that have been funnelling out of the party HQs in the last few days. Most are chimera, most will be consigned to the bin within three weeks and what survives will be whittled away by subsequent events. So…
Read MoreThe first head-to-head debate is over. And the verdict? Laughter! When Boris was asked whether he thought that truth was important in the election, he agreed and the audience laughed. When Corbyn mentioned his four-day week, again the audience laughed. Lies or Utopias, no one is happy with the choice before them.
Read MoreYou can’t be a very happy bunny, having to brave this awful weather in this, our ‘Election of Discontent’. It was a desperate gamble by Boris to go for a winter date. Already the rain has brought floods to the north and on Tuesday…
Read MoreSo Nigel Farage has confirmed that a vote for Boris is a vote for him. They are one and the same. How does that make you feel now that the bad boy of the right has withdrawn candidates from contesting 317 Tory held seats to confirm your party as Brexit Party Mark 2. Goodbye One Nation Tories!
Read MoreWe know that politicians rarely tell the truth. The phrase, ‘Let me make it absolutely clear…’. usually signals a right old verbal porridge for the obfuscation and confusion of the listener. We grimace, at best turn off the radio and, at worst, throw something at it.
Read MoreAll tickets please! Your bus is about to leave for the future. Red buses, blue buses, orange and green buses, they will all soon be leaving their garages to display their splendid new liveries, spotless and gleaming for the nation to admire.
Read MoreJohn is my friend. He also happens to be a plumber, a carpenter, an electrician, a gardener - in other words a Man for All Seasons, a Man of All Trades, a Mr Fixit Extraordinaire. He was doing some work in
Read MoreThey were both at it yesterday. First Jeremy and then Boris. Mr Corbyn emerged from his confused dreams of a 2017 'electoral triumph’ and voted with Boris for a general election. Immediately afterwards, the two main parties
Read MoreIt was all so well planned. There would be warning ads and commemorative coins to celebrate October 31st after Boris had won his great prize. But it was not to be. There has been no prize. Haven’t we been here before? Anyone remember Mrs May?
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