Redundant words were 12A virgin, 16A crazy, 38A mammal, 18D state, 21D greed, 25D tendon, 34D extremist. These respectively defined 14A vestal, 20D lunatic, 6D marsupial, 23D Indiana, 33A cupidity, 15A paxwax, 41A absolutist. Roman gods (underlined) in these words were turned into their Greek equivalents. First prize Nadya James, Heanor, Derbyshire Runners-up Ben Stephenson, London
In Competition No. 3007 you were invited to submit a poem about Larry, the Downing Street cat. Larry came to No. 10 in 2011 from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home during David Cameron’s premiership. He was left behind when the family moved on, though Mr Cameron denied that this was because he hated cats. Although
Here we go again. During the General Election campaign, Diane Abbott came under fire when it became apparent in an LBC interview that she had no idea how her party would pay for its policy of 10,000 extra police officers – at one point saying it would cost £300,000, working out at £30 an officer. So,
So Vince Cable is now the new Lib Dem leader, after no-else opposed the 74-year-old Twickenham MP for the party’s top job. Of course, in the Lib Dems the ‘top job’ is a little less powerful than in other parties, thanks to a spider’s web of structures that mean the leader can’t always do what
Freedom House is a remarkable and largely admirable organisation. Over the years it has done some great work challenging governments with a tendency towards the authoritarian. Yet its attacks on the government of Hungary are increasingly off-kilter. Regular readers will recall that the Hungarian government differs from the German government in believing that it is
There is a group of women who have every reason to feel aggrieved to learn that the BBC is paying Gary Lineker £1.8 million a year and John Humphreys between £600,000 and £650,000. But it doesn’t include Jane Garvey and Emily Maitlis, both of whom appear to be grubbing by on a little below £150,000. It is
On this week’s episode, Isabel Hardman is joined by guests to look at the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean and how NGOs might be making things worse, rather than better. We also wonder whether Bristol should be ashamed of its past, and discuss binge drinking with Julie Burchill. Fewer than 300 miles off the Libyan
This week, with the holidays approaching, I’m joined by the critic Alex Clark and Damian Barr — memoirist and host of the Savoy’s Literary Salon — to talk about summer reading. What do you take? What do you regret taking? Kindle, dead-tree or — 19th-century-style — cabin trunk full of books sent on ahead? Our
One of the few bits of legislation that the government thinks it can get past MPs is a domestic violence bill, which was announced as a draft bill in the Queen’s Speech. Yesterday the minister responsible for taking the Bill through the Commons, Sarah Newton, held a meeting with MPs, campaigners and survivors of abuse
This afternoon, David Davis and Michel Barnier gave a joint press conference to update hacks on the progress that’s been made in the second instalment of Brexit talks. However, there wasn’t all that much progress to report back on. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, said there was a ‘fundamental’ split between the EU and the UK
Oh dear. Although there has been much excitement this week at the news that Jane Austen will feature on the new ten pound note, some appear to have got a bit carried away in their celebrations. Speaking in the Chamber this morning, Andrea Leadsom shared her personal joy at the news: ‘I’m delighted to join
Who has the most over-inflated reputation in British politics? Theresa May’s air of calculating caution is long gone, no one has believed in Boris Johnson’s connection with ordinary voters for a while, and if anyone still thinks the dwindling tribe of hardcore Blairites blathering on about the radical centre know anything about what is going
On Tuesday the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) announced a crackdown on gender stereotyping. Adverts suggesting men are useless around the house – racing out of the door, leaving the stove bubbling over and the dishes unwashed – could be censored because they ‘reinforce and perpetuate traditional gender roles.’ Images of beautiful mothers mopping spotless floors will
Today the House rises for summer recess and, as James writes, Downing Street achieves its immediate post-election aim: Theresa May makes it to the summer recess. The government hopes the break will allow the party to regroup and come back more focused and more united. Whether that happens or not, what is clear is that the Prime
Today Downing Street achieves its immediate post-election aim: Theresa May makes it to the summer recess. As I say in the pol col this week, Number 10 have long hoped that the summer break will give the government a much-needed chance to regroup and that conditions will be easier when parliament resumes in the autumn.
The BBC is our other national religion and like the NHS it inspires a devotional intensity that can be a little creepy. The disclosure of star salaries over £150,000 certainly brought out the worst in the Corporation’s self-styled defenders. Their argument could have been designed to annoy: market dogmatists wanted to destroy the BBC because it’s
Following the EU’s deal with Turkey over people smuggling, the issue of migrants trying to cross, and quite often drowning in, the Mediterranean has largely disappeared from the British media. There have been no more images like that of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach after the rubber dinghy in which his
The Egyptian-born Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was once invited to speak in this country — and the row which developed as a consequence was both entertaining and instructive. Many people said he shouldn’t be given a visa because of his ‘extremism’. Others, such as the mainstream UK Muslim organisations, insisted that this was a libellous
When I order a cup of tea in Costa, the barista says: ‘Perfect!’ I ask for tap water in a restaurant: ‘Perfect!’ I buy a card in Paperchase and at the till it’s: ‘Perfect!’ And: ‘Perfect!’ again as I put in my PIN. ‘Perfect!’ when I say I don’t need a bag. It used to
Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook could be to its users what churches are to congregations: it could help them feel part of ‘a more connected world’. That got a dusty response. Facebook as church, eh? So the man who helped an entire generation to replace real friends with virtual ones and online communities is sounding
