Books and Arts – 14 March 2013

Former Lib Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has been sentenced to eight months in jail, a judge has announced at Southwark Crown Court in the last few minutes. His ex-wife Vicky Pryce was also sentenced for eight months. It’s worth reading the interview that Chris Huhne gave to the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour before his sentencing at Southwark
‘They’ve been closed to stop benefit tourists from using them.’
‘I’ve got a book in me.’
‘Form follows function, Mr Chairman.’
‘And don’t go rushing back to work, Ma’am. I hear that Helen Mirren is doing an excellent job.’
‘If I’d known I was going to get charged extra to bring this stuff on my journey to the next world, I wouldn’t have been buried with so much of it.’
‘The congregation’s adamant, Vicar — she’s against gay marriage.’
‘It’s a prequel!’
‘I’m finished as a cardinal — I think I’ll become a Liberal Democrat.’
‘Think of it as downsizing.’
‘Outrageous, disgraceful, unfair — and that’s just my bonus!’
‘We’re invited to dinner at the Biebers’ — seven for nine-thirty.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re STILL depressed.’
Gove’s history lessons Sir: ‘The idea that there is a canonical body of knowledge that must be mastered,’ says Professor Jackie Eales, ‘but not questioned, is inconsistent with high standards of education in any age.’ This is not true. Primary education is, or should be, all about just such a body of knowledge. This gives
Twenty-five years ago, when he had left the Communist party and taken over as chief executive at Doncaster Royal Infirmary, Sir David Nicholson made a point of promising his staff a ‘job for life’. He has certainly stuck to his ideology. This week he admitted his part in the Mid Staffordshire hospitals scandal, in which
Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer failed to dissuade EU finance minsters in Brussels from endorsing a plan to cap bankers’ pay bonuses. City banks contemplated taking the EU to court over it. HSBC’s annual profits fell by 6 per cent to £14 billion, including a loss of £700 million made in Britain.