I've had this blog for eighteen months, and it's been - for me, at least - wonderful. I could not have wished for a better host than the team at the Spectator, who never once interfered with anything other than positive suggestions. James Forsyth and Pete Hoskin are stars, both.

I first started blogging in May 2002, before I had heard of the word. I simply put all my newspaper pieces up on a site, and started to add little posts. Soon it became a habit.

And I have loved every minute of it since. (Well, almost.) And although this blog will be stopping, that won't be the end of my life as a blogger. I will be blogging from next week - all being well technologically - at the JC's site. The address will be www.thejc.com/stephenpollard

I hope that you'll find that although the blog's style will be rather different, it'll still be worth a]]>

This is the Merriam Webster definition of a renegade:

1 : a deserter from one faith, cause, or allegiance to another
2 : an individual who rejects lawful or conventional behavior  

(via Jessica Duchen)

What is your single biggest hope for Barack Obama?

There's already been a black President. This man (and his brother, of course).

UPDATE: Er, do I really have to say I am joking? Yes, I know it's fiction.

If you want to understand what is happening in the US underneath the surface, my advice is to read the above article, and almost anything by Ruy Texeira.

(UPDATE: Ouch, what a howler. I meant columns. Mea culpa.)
(UPDATE: Wow, what a howler. Ouch. I mean, of course, .)

Dear Colleagues
It should perhaps make us feel better about the mistakes that we all make in our use of English that the new leader of the free world, Barack Obama, managed to slip up in his victory speech in Chicago in the small hours of Wednesday morning. He spoke of the "enormity" of the task facing his country. If you don't know why he was wrong, please do feel free to look the word up in the nearest dictionary.

While these notes attempt to be entertaining, there must be a brief lapse into seriousness. We appear to have had an avalanche of errors online in the last fortnight. This seems to be because of the fundamental failure of writers and their line managers to read back what has been written before posting it. This has to stop. Proper preparation of a piece of

Tomorrow the Employment Bill reaches its final stages in the House of Commons. Section 18 of the original Bill would have allowed trade unions to exclude members of the British National Party and other racists. The Bill that will be presented to MPs tomorrow, however, has a very different version - one that would achieve the precise opposite of the Bill's initial intent. The House of Lords altered it so greatly that it now protects BNP members' union membership. Tomorrow Labour MPs will propose an amendment to restore the original section allowing unions to expel BNP members.

This is not, as it has been presented, a question of trade union rights. Rather, the issue at stake is the very notion of freedom of association. It is in everyone's interest - even, counterintuitively, that of BNP members - that the amendment succeeds, and unions are permitted to decide who may or may not join them.

In law, trade unions ought to have no greater rights than any other bodies. But nor should they, in their internal affairs, have any greater responsibilities. The law should step in

 Americans are thinking hard about the direction their country is heading.
As I was coming through immigration, even the Homeland Security officer checking my passport looked at my name and asked if I was related to John Bolton, the former UN ambassador.

On TV, their talk show hosts such as Jay Leno, David Letterman and John Stewart are funny but serious - cutting through the spin to put the candidates to the test.

And they don't do pee, bum, belly, poo jokes either.

Leno and Letterman's wise cracks epitomise what the public is really wondering about their next President.

And what to we get? Jonathan Ross asking David Cameron if he used to masturbate about Mrs Thatcher.

We love to attack the US media such as Fox and MSNBC for bias - but what they are doing is arguing fiercely about the issues and attitudes which will define their nation for the next eight years, teasing out such fundamental issues as race, gender, equality, liberty and power.

Their viewers are being fed food for thought.

I don't know what the BBC thinks it's serving up.