The Guardian reports that Nigel Farage's partner, Laure Ferrari, has refused to confirm how she paid for a house in the Reform leader and MP's constituency of Clacton, adding "there's more than one way to pay for a house". The paper says that in an interview with French publication Le Monde, Ferrari was questioned over revelations in the Guardian that she had purchased a house in her name in Clacton after Farage had claimed to be the buyer. They add that Farage initially said the arrangement was for "security" reasons but some months later, he told reporters that Ferrari came ...
Before he was a film director, Stanley Kubrick was a photographer. And he never lost his interest in photography. I remember Keith Hamshere, the first boy to play Oliver Twist in Oliver! and later a leading Hollywood stills photographer, saying he learnt to keep out of Kubrick's eyeline if he was on set during one of his films. If he didn't, Kubrick would notice him and say something like "Is that a new lens? How are you finding it?", the film suddenly forgotten.
Long ago, in its February 2004 issue to be precise, I wrote an occasional humorous column for Clinical Psychology Forum under the name Professor Strange. As I still come across people who are quite convinced that the Victorians thought table legs indecent, I am repeating it here. I doubt you will find anything like this in Clinical Psychology Forum today, but Professor Strange is an ancestor for the columns I now write for the Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy. Victorians, modesty and table legs The Victorians do not get a good press these days. A random trawl of ...
We are moving inexorably towards polling day. So here's a short round up of what I've been doing. On Saturday I was in Ryton delivering leaflets aimed at squeezing what's left of the collapsing Labour vote. On Sunday there was an action day in Dunston Hill and Whickham East. I was there to help deliver Focus leaflets. Monday may well have been a bank holiday but I was delivering Focuses in
It's not just Ed Davey who was approached by MI6. Alex Cole-Hamilton reveals in a notably friendly interview in the Scottish Sun that he was too:Alex Cole-Hamilton could have been driving a James Bond-style Aston Martin instead of a second-hand electric Mustang - if he had chosen to join MI6. The leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats has revealed for the first time how he was tapped-up by the secret intelligent service when he graduated from uni. But Alex turned his back on life as a spy for the British Government due to his Quaker religion - who believe in ...
"Harold Wilson: The Winner" by Nick Thomas-Symonds is an excellent biography which, to a large degree, resets the reputation of Wilson with a skilled degree of fairness and precision. Previous accounts have painted him as a manipulative fixer – often working out the lowest common denominator in any situation to find a way to muddle forward. Thomas-Symonds, with access to more documents than were previously available, gives us a picture of a decent, honourable man who was also very clever. His concern for the under-privileged and for issues such as race and gender equality shine through his work. He retained ...
We do not have elections in Liverpool this year, so we have been helping out in a range of councils that are not too far away with some of our people out in London for the rest of the week. What is clear is that both Labour and Conservative Parties are going to get hammered this Thursday. The polls all conclude that there will be massive losses for them both, with the only disagreement being the exact extent of those losses. We do not have to rely on polls, however because all that they are indicating is the trend which ...
The Mirror reports that Reform UK's campaign in Wales has descended into infighting after an election candidate said a social media post by prominent party member Arron Banks was racist. The paper says that James Evans, a candidate for Reform, has now become the first party figure to brand comments by key Reform supporter, Arron Banks as racist after the Brexit bankroller prompted a furious reaction from opponents after writing "Welsh lad?" in response to a clip posted on X featuring a Black activist campaigning for Plaid Cymru on Monday. This row though pales in comparison to the new policy ...