On Friday I went to see the first day of Leicestershire vs Sussexc in Division 2 of cricket's County Championship. I had planned it as a sort of existential protest against starting the cricket Championship so early to make room for The Hundred in midsummer. I expected to be wrapped in woollens and sipping a thermos of Bovril. As it turned out, the forecast was for a dry and sunny day. The weather didn't quite live up to that - the morning was lovely, but it clouded over after lunch and eventually the floodlights came on - yet I've been ...
Embed from Getty ImagesWhen it comes to American mysteries, second only to 'who shot JFK?'* comes "Did D.B. Cooper get away with it?" In November 1971, during the 'golden age of hijacking', D.B. Cooper** hijacked an internal US flight and demanded $300,000 and two parachutes. He got them, leapt from the plane at altitude and was never seen again. Nine years later, some of the money he had been given was found buried in the banks of the Columbia River in Washington State. This may suggest that the rest of the money and Cooper's body lie somewhere nearby, but there ...
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 – indicates that party didn't feature in the polling questions separate from 'Others' or that the data is not yet available. RUK = Brexit Party or Reform Party. Numbers ...
I joined Times Radio this week for a panel with Matt Chorley discussing Kate Dommett's research into how political parties spend money.
"Democracy," Winston Churchill famously said, "is the worst form of government – except for all those other forms that have been tried." Then there is democracy unchained, or without the restraints of the rule of law and free speech. Also known as "the tyranny of the majority" or the "will of the people" or, perhaps, "democracy flawed." These are elected governments with political leaders who have harnessed to their own pursuit of power a perceived threat to the majority, or a growing, vociferous and politically motivated minority. There are far too many examples to choose from but let's focus on ...
As reported in yesterday's "Evening Telegraph", we have called on Dundee City Council to make urgent progress on promised replacement housing in Blackness Road, following the demolition of 27 Victorian flats three years ago given the state of their external stairwells. The original housing at 219-245 Blackness Road was demolished in spring 2021 and at the time the council promised to deliver a £4.5 million project to build 24 modern apartments. Three years on, despite planning consent, building has yet to commence and we have said the council must urgently make good on its promise to build the replacement housing. ...
