At the next election, all parties will agree that Britain is in a mess. They will disagree about is who is to blame. Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats will say that Labour left behind an even bigger set of problems than people realise; their government has started to fix things, they’ll argue, but
More turmoil at No. 10, I hear. ‘Cameron’s power network is disintegrating,’ gloated an insider as news broke that two aides close to the cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood, are to leave. The pair worked together at the highest level. Paul Kirby (head of policy) would devise new administrative schemes and Kris Murrin (head of implementation)
Oh, this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is.’ — Gaius Valerius Catullus ‘I do not know whom Mary Beard is but wyth a name lyke that she surely has a third teat and a hairy clopper.’ — Internet posting following Professor Mary Beard’s appearance on Question Time So Catullus, mate — things have not got much
On the patio of my hotel in Havana… No, begin again. It isn’t really a hotel, it’s a Casa Particular — someone’s home. Delia’s home: a modest ground-floor apartment in an externally shabby old stone tenement on a neglected side street near the waterfront of Old Havana. Casas Particulares are a tropical adaptation of the B&B:
In which forthcoming by-election does one candidate’s election address boast that he was the ‘last Captain of Boats [at Eton] to win the Ladies Plate at Henley in 1960’, while one of his rivals says that, at Harrow, ‘unfortunately I did not cover myself with academic glory’? The answer is a by-election among the Conservative
It’s only fair to warn you — especially if you’re Greek, Irish or Chinese — that this week’s column contains negative stereotyping. I’ll leave the transsexuals to Rod Liddle, but I’m still bracing for the Twitter storm. My propensity to commit this category of thought crime was first pointed out to me by Giorgos Papaconstantinou,
