Do you share the very real pain of the disability lobby groups about George Galloway MP referring to someone with whom he was arguing as a window-licker? Maybe you do. I have never heard the term used except as a mild admonition to someone who had just done or said something stupid. For others, it
It wasn’t hard to tell the Republican establishment from the Tea Party activists at this year’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. The different uniforms illustrated the unresolved tensions that run through American conservatism. In the convention hall, the regular Republicans often looked dressed for dinner at eight — smart jackets and pearls. A boy
Sometimes only a cliché will do, especially when the subject is the Australian Labor party. Labor is holed beneath the water line and is sinking fast. No one, not even its newly reinstated skipper, Kevin Rudd, is capable of keeping the boat afloat as the nation heads for a general election on 7 September. In
I returned last week from a short break in the Balkans; travelling by train in Serbia, walking from village to village over the mountains of northern Albania, an evening in a big Albanian town, a couple of journeys in Montenegro and a very short time in Croatia… so only a taste; nothing that makes me
It’s senseless to ask how things are going to end, because things as a general rule don’t. They rumble on, they morph, and yesterday’s drama becomes tomorrow’s eyebrow-raising justification for thinking that people used to be inexplicable idiots. Nonetheless, I read these stories of house prices rising again and I cannot help but wonder. How
So farewell then £80,000 salary, £150,000 expense account, secretary, team of assistants, constituency office, first-class travel, immunity from prosecution, Brussels blowouts, ludicrous pension and all the other perks I’d been so looking forward to enjoying from May next year onwards. Ukip has decided that it doesn’t, after all, want to have me as one of
Listen, this story is moving so quickly stuff will almost certainly have happened in between me writing it and you reading it. I hate the idea that you might be left behind the curve, but I just don’t know how to get around that. An outrage occurs and of course we try faithfully to report
Coming back to the office after a holiday is never a pleasant experience. There’s the clogged inbox, the reminders that you have left undone those things which you ought to have done, and the realisation that you won’t get another break for months. But even by these standards, Ed Miliband has had a difficult return
Apparently I’ve proposed to my civil partner. He claims that on BBC Radio 2, on the Jeremy Vine show (he thinks it was the JV show) I expressed myself in terms which presumed his prior acceptance. I can’t remember a thing about it — on live radio one does tend to throw these thoughts out
Hell, it’s been tough, but I think I’ve pulled through. I went out this morning to buy some cigarettes and there were plenty of people about, doing stuff — so the world has not changed beyond recognition these last couple of days. Everyone else seems to have made it. I hope you made it OK,
A few months after the last election, Oliver Letwin warned Cabinet colleagues that a chunk of Britain’s income would be gone for good after the economic crisis. Letwin, who has always been the Cameron project’s in-house intellectual, told them that some of the complex high finance in which Britain had specialised was never coming back.
You may be aware that David Cameron — as part of a secret, Lynton Crosby-inspired operation codenamed Suck Up Shamelessly To The Embittered Authoritarian Killjoy Harpies At Mumsnet — has decreed that as from next year the default option when you sign a contract with your new internet provider will be ‘No porn in this
I have tried very hard to become an afficianado of pornography, seeing as it is by far the most popular pastime in the world. Also, it annoys a lot of people that I don’t like, so I feel I should put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. But the trouble is, the
This is not to be a column about Twitter. Can’t abide columns about Twitter. I’ve written a few, I know, but this is not to be another one. I promise. Time was, though, it was actually quite hard to find out what people thought, if they weren’t you. I mean, you could go out and
It is within the experience of even the humblest of MPs that those who oppose what you do will berate you with a great deal more passion than you will ever attract from those who support your plans. Any help you can give may be treated by its beneficiaries as no more than your duty;
Driving along in the car on a pleasant evening earlier this week, I was happily humming along to the toe-tapping sounds of the sadly defunct deathcore stalwarts Anal Prolapse, when my wife leaned over and turned the CD player off and the radio on. Those smug and portentous pips sounded. ‘What the hell are you
Is there treachery at the top of Ukip? Westminster has been buzzing with the rumour that party treasurer Stuart Wheeler has laid money on the Conservatives to win an overall majority in 2015. Can it possibly be true? Mr Steerpike called Mr Wheeler who was happy to spill the beans. Yes, he said, he has
Topless men. What does that mean, then? I was opposite one on the tube the other day, heading north from Finsbury Park, and I just couldn’t stop -staring. In terms of sheer comfort, I was quite jealous. There was me, sweating in my shirt and suit trousers, and there was him, open to the air in
What a glorious sporting summer it has been so far. For some the highlight will have been Andy Murray at Wimbledon, for others that nailbiting first Test against the Aussies. But for me, none of this comes even close to matching the joy, the exultation, the triumph of the moment on an Atlantic beach a
I wonder what possessed the jury in the Trayvon Martin case to return two not guilty verdicts when they knew the trouble it would cause. One never ceases to wonder at the self-importance, the narcissism, of those people who always believe they know better than the rest. An important section of the American population — perpetually