- Blog
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The three lives of a photograph
My Mother, Bridie, was born in rural County Kilkenny at the end of the twenties. I think this photograph was taken there by my Dad in about 1960, after they were married and on a visit home. So that’s how this photograph’s first life got started, presumably in a little Kodak camera of some sort,…
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I’m a blogdaddy!
Clever Alex Barnett’s blogdaddy, in fact. How cool is that?
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Blunkett brutalised
His offence was foolish but hardly a crime. The Ministerial Code is intended to prevent conflicts of interest from arising. None arose. He entered every transaction into the register of members’ interests. He did everything he was obliged to and made a royal balls up of the discretionary bits. He’s been a grade A berk.…
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A little local difficulty
Local politics round my way is getting more interesting daily. An exciting and incendiary public meeting in the village tonight was about the nastiest and noisiest assembly I’ve seen since Heseltine swung the mace. The County Council is using a risk-based statistical method (provided by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) to trim fire…
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You can call me guv
Democracy is alive and well, if uneven as to outcome. The Iraqis have – heroically – produced something approaching a viable constitutional basis for the next round of elections. Morgan Tsvangiri has succeeded in splitting and thus crippling Mugabe’s only opposition in Zimbabwe. In Britain, Labour’s proposed changes to electoral law look like a win…
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Ancient practices
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The Tories’ Messiah?
The Tory leadership fight is the best political entertainment for a decade – and I don’t like saying that because it suggests they’re closer to a come-back than they’ve been for all of that decade. I’m hardly an insider but it’s obvious to me that the party must elect Cameron. They must elect him for…
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Harry Potter: the verdict is in (in case you’ve been waiting)
I know I’m late to this discussion but I’ve managed, somehow, to fail to connect with the Harry Potter phenomenon entirely. Until now. I’d never read the books nor seen the movies (although the house seems to be half-filled with Potter merchandise). So, this week, I’ve been reading the kids (well, the older two) the…
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Cameron’s drug hell
I honestly wouldn’t have dreamt of getting my oar in here (private grief and all that…) if the Tory Party leadership contest hadn’t become so God-damn entertaining. Cameron’s refusal to confirm or deny is the only politically acceptable response to the drugs question. Everyone (I mean everyone – we are all, after all, sophisticated political…
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Dodgy country reports send refugees back to their doom
Important journalism from Dominic Arkwright on the BBC’s Broadcasting House Sunday Morning news show. It turns out that the ‘country reports’ produced by the Home Office on which immigration service deportation decisions are based are partial and inaccurate. Arkwright says: “Some of the so-called Country Reports are so flawed, it’s said, that they’re virtually useless…