Smoking: why New Labour doesn’t want to give it up
JUST four months before New Labour took office, Bernie Ecclestone – the former secondhand car salesman who now heads Formula One, the world’s most lucrative sport – gave the party a cheque for £1m. Shortly after Blair’s election victory, Bernie and a team of his F1 mates met the new prime minister in Downing Street. [...]
Lads’ mags and Labour: why Claire Curtis-Thomas won’t win
LORD Mandelson – back when he was just plain Peter, and resolutely still in the closet – used to write a column for FHM. Given that this publication is known chiefly for its annual rundown of ‘the world’s 100 sexiest women’, I always found that idea amusingly incongruous. That Mandy’s sexual preferences were other than [...]
Blogging versus journalism: some observations
I ALWAYS knew I wanted to be a journalist. I remember being about eight or nine years old, turning up at the Wellingborough office of the Evening Telegraph, and announcing that fact to the receptionist. The hacks were sufficiently amused to grant me a tour of the newsroom. This ambition of mine was somehow sidelined [...]
Shannon Matthews case: pure evil?
PURE EVIL. That’s how one senior police officer branded Karen Matthews, the woman who rigged the kidnap of her nine year old daughter Shannon in the hope of pocketing around £50,000 in reward money. Without exception this morning’s newspapers lay into her in the crudest possible class-ridden terms, revelling in the multiple stereotypes provided by [...]
Speech: why Marxism is sexy again
This is a draft version of a speech I am due to give in the private room of a well-known London restaurant tomorrow, before an audience that will include a number of seriously rich but left-leaning businessmen, and perhaps even some cabinet-level Labour politicians. Believe me, if I told you who is likely to be [...]
Baby P: in defence of Sharon Shoesmith
IN PROFESSIONAL life, we all make mistakes from time to time. This is more of an issue in some jobs than others. Rightly, air traffic controllers and brain surgeons don’t get cut much slack. But a missed sales target is just a missed sales target, and genuinely accidental damage to company property will be picked [...]
After Mumbai: time for a settlement in Kashmir
THE BODIES are still being counted in Mumbai, and the blame for the atrocities has yet to be allocated. But it is already amply clear exactly which country constitutes the chief suspect. Claims from unnamed Indian government ‘insiders’ over the weekend that seven of the perpetrators were British – including two from Leeds, one from [...]
