Members of the Bicester and Whaddon Chase Hunt. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images. And so it begins. As a traditionalist when it comes to these matters, I think it best that parties wait until they win an election before they water down or abandon their promises. Apparently, however, that’s an old-fashioned view these days. Despite repeated
Elvis Presley once said that the Louvin Brothers were his favourite country musicians. But he nver recorded one of their songs. Perhaps because, like almost everyone else who ever had any dealings with the Alabama-born and raised brothers, he’d been cussed out by Ira Louvin. Charlie said that his elder brother was all kinds of
I mean, really, how absurd. We are accustomed to being baffled by the Nobel committee, but the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama is entirely preposterous. Apparently: “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better
At first I thought it a little unfortunate that David Cameron’s peroration today unconsciously – I assume – echoed the Royal Bank of Scotland’s slogan “Make it happen”. But actually, the rise and fall of RBS is something of a template for the rise and fall of governments. Years of promise and fat and profit
So, the headlines from Liam Fox’s speech today concentrate on his pledge to reduce MoD costs by 25% without, of course, there being any impact on “front-line troops”. Our old chum Mr Efficiency Savings is being asked to report for yet another tour of duty. Doubtless there are indeed parts of the defence civil service
I confess I don’t know very much about Isi Leibler, but he’s a columnist at the Jerusalem Post who wrote this week that: The exploitation of Judge Goldstone’s Jewish background by our enemies intensifies our obligation to confront the enemy within – renegade Jews – including Israelis who stand at the vanguard of global efforts
This is why we need an organ market: The number of people agreeing to donate their organs after death is growing, but at a slower rate than the number of patients who need them, a report warns. The first year of a concerted effort to boost UK donation rates did see the number of transplants
I think this is probably the best intro you’re likely to read all day week: A gay man tried to poison his lesbian neighbours by putting slug pellets into their curry after he was accused of kidnapping their three-legged cat. Fair play to the Daily Mail. This is tabloid, er, catnip. As always, the story
One of the great oddities of the moment is the apparent belief, held in some circles, that Newt Gingrich is some kind of political soothsayer. Granted, this notion is mainly fostered by Newt himself but it remains perplexing that so many people seem prepared to grant him the guru status he craves with such unbecoming,
Plenty of Tories are, it seems, cock-a-hoop about the news, still to be confirmed, that General Sir Richard Dannatt is to be elevated to the House of Lords where he will become a Tory defence adviser and, perhaps, a minister in the next Conservative government. And, in fairness, one can see why the Conservatives would
The FT’s Philip Stephens gave the traditional fretting over the future of the Special Relationship a novel twist yesterday: Tory hostility to the EU threatens the transatlantic relationship too. Actually, there’s something to this. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Foreign Policy’s David Rothkopf summarises how the London-Washington axis may look if Cameron is
As readers know, in general terms I think the Obama administration has taken a fairly sensible, moderate approach towards Iran. Nevertheless, it’s possible to take this too far. And this seems, on the face of it, to be one example of when carefulness crosses the line and becomes craven: For the past five years, researchers
Then again, if things are bad in Ireland, they’re also pretty ghastly here too. Consider this story from the Times today: Britain, already one of the most snooped-upon nations on Earth, is about to become a nation of snoopers. A network of citizen crimewatchers will be given the chance of winning up to £1,000 by
George Osborne may be warning of austere times ahead, but the situation is much graver on the other side of the Irish sea. Yesterday’s Irish Times revealed the startling details of a new plan to resuce Hibernia. Even the cute hoors are cheap hoors now. [Hat-tip: BadJournalism via Twitter. My Twitter feed is here.]
So, you see, Barack Obama is a Democratic president just like Jack Kennedy and LBJ and, right, there’s a war going on in Aghanistan which is in asia, just like Vietnam! So the parallels are just uncanny. Right? Wrong. It’s time, people. for a comprehensive ban on making facile comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam. Prospect’s
Sweet. This had to happen: A Ministry of Defence document giving advice on how to stop documents leaking onto the internet has been leaked onto the internet. …The 2,400-page restricted document has found its way on to Wikileaks, a website that publishes anonymous leaks of sensitive information from organisations including governments, corporations and religions. Known
Like other sensible people I’m encouraged by the Tories plans for education in England. The Swedish system of Free Schools has a lot to be said for it. Still, I wonder why the Tories have chosen Sweden as their role model rather than, say, the Netherlands or New Zealand both of which also have extensive
For some time since I came of voting age I took the view that it was more important to vote (when I bothered to vote) for the party, not the man (or woman). A lot of people, perhaps even a majority of the electorate, think this way. But I now think I was wrong and
Aye lads, it’s what you might call a Reiving moon right enough. Taken circa 9pm tonight.
OK, some Sunday fun and games. A wee while back Patrick Kidd had a nice item in which Henry Blofeld listed his all-time cricket XI drawn from PG Wodehouse characters. This is the sort of throoughly entertaining, pointless exercise Wodehouse would have relished himself. And, for that matter, the sort of un-made challenge that cannot