AS I POST this, tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the tragic suicide at the age of 40 of the novelist, poet and filmmaker BS Johnson, perhaps best known today for his darkly humorous novel Christie Malry's own double entry, published a few months before his death. In this long and no doubt self-indulgent post, which I hope one or two people may fight their way through, I describe how he has kept cropping up in my own life, leading to a curiosity about his work that only in the last few weeks have I satisfied by reading any of ...
Matthew Pennell says Arm Ukraine Now: "We've supported the country enough for it to avoid total defeat, but our lack of commitment has allowed Russia to become entrenched, now it believes it can make its territorial gains permanent, thanks to millions and millions of treaty-defying mines. Russia has been inept and predictable, it's sustained huge losses, but Ukraine has never had the resource to drive Russia out and complete a total victory." "As soon as parliament was back from the conference recess, the government started pumping out ministerial edicts, on acute areas of public interest, without any scrutiny, or assessment ...
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: It's been a low-key running theme in this newsletter that the current Conservative voting intention figures aren't just poor, nor bad, but really awful – and that the scale of their awfulness is being under-appreciated. Hence my occasional references to Michael Foot and the jibe last time around about the Conservatives polling worse than even the all-time record holder for bad general Conservative election results, the Duke of Wellington, even whilst acknowledging in the 'list of 10' round-up some glimmers of hope ...
Nominations close tomorrow night for candidates for office bearer positions and the party committees, along with representatives to Federal Party Committees and the Federal Council to serve for the next two years. It's a challenging time for the Scottish Party. The people elected at this set of elections will need to progress the 150 Rising project, to almost double our councillors at the next set of council elections in 2027, as well as get us through the General Election and prepare for the Scottish Parliament elections in 2026. Nominations close tomorrow night (13th November) at midnight. Any member of the ...
The flags were ready to be waved at the Polish celebrations in the Liverpool Polish School to commemorate Remembrance Day and also their own 125th anniversary of the founding of their state. Yesterday I was pleased to go with Cllr ... Continue reading →
Embed from Getty ImagesEngland named their squads for their 50-over and T20 cricket internationals against the West Indies next month. Included in the 50-over squad is the Lancashire spinner Tom Hartley, who provides us with out Trivial Fact of the Day. This is because he's the son of Bill Hartley, the British athlete of the 1970s, Bill Hartley was Britain's second-best 400m hurdler of his day, behind Alan Pascoe, and won silver at the 1974 Commonwealth Games. He and Pascoe were both in the England 400m relay team that won silver at those games and the British team that won ...
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention poll from each pollster currently operating in Britain. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls PollsterConLabLDGrnRUKCon leadFieldwork WeThink 24% (-3) 48% (+3) 9% (-1) 6% (+1) 8% (-1) -24% 9-10/11 Opinium 26% (-1) 43% (+1) 11% (+1) 6% (-1) 9% (+1) -17% 8-10/11 Techne ...
Brilliant Mistake was written for Elvis Costello's 1985 album King of America, and provides that album with its opening track and title. The critics agree the song is about Costello's own experiences in the US, both infatuated with and repulsed by the society he found there. Maybe it was the infatuation that saw him discard his usual backing band The Attractions for all but one of the album's tracks. Costello says he wrote Brilliant Mistake with The Attractions' sound in mind, but was disappointed with what they made of it and used The Confederates, a group of US session musicians ...
Anti-semitism Anti-Semitism is rocketing worldwide. In London, the Metropolitan Police, reported that that incidents of anti-Semitism increased 1,350 percent since October 7. Similar figures are emerging from the US, France, Germany, the Netherlands.... This is because the Israeli government has become a symbol violent oppression and far-right intolerance based on religion. And the sad fact is, too many people conflate Judaism with Israel. They fail to recognise that there are a sizeable number of Jews in Israel who do not support Netanyahu and there is an even larger number of Jews outside Israel who do not support his Likud-led coalition. ...
The Oldham Times reports: Tom Penketh, of Shaw, was just 18 years old when he gained 812 votes to be elected to the Shaw and Crompton Parish Council in May... He said: "I discovered my interest in politics during the US Election when I was in Year 11. "I managed to get onto the youth council through school, and then realised I wanted to do this sort of thing on a bigger scale." The councillor added: "The election fell perfectly because it was just after I turned 18. I thought 'Why not?' and went for it. "I managed to get ...
It is difficult to disagree with Sadiq Khan when he states in the Mirror that the violent scenes we witnessed yesterday around the cenotaph were a direct result of the Suella Braverman's words and behaviour. Like many of us, he believes that the scenes of unacceptable aggression and disorder from the far right near the Cenotaph and in parts of central London yesterday were deeply disturbing. Just minutes before a moment of national silence to remember all those who have lost their lives while serving our country, we saw far-right thugs attacking the police. Sadly, he says, these scenes were ...
I so wish that the focus of yesterday's marches had been on comforting all those affected by the horrific events in Israel and Gaza and calling for more international effort to find a lasting peace in that region. It's really important that a relatively small number of ultra right wingers don't detract from that. However, the right wing thuggery can't be ignored, especially as they were emboldened by Suella Braverman's comments this week. Those right wing extremists don't reflect our country. They may think they have the blessing of the Home Secretary but most British people find them utterly repulsive. ...
Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education is hosting its annual Building Bridges Symposium next Thursday - 16th November. This year in the theme of "Community." This event is the latest in a series of successful symposiums hosted by the college. You can read more and book a place at this Eventbrite link -
