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Author: CycleFree

Let’s party Number 10 style

Let’s party Number 10 style

The panto season appears to have started early this year. Appropriately enough it relates to a Xmas party which happened at 10, Downing Street around this time last year. Oh, yes it did! Oh, no it didn’t! say others – mostly unmemorable junior Ministers. And even if it did no rules were broken. A big fuss about nothing, yet others will say. Hmmm ….. those who were fined for breaking the Covid rules might disagree. The hospitality venues who lost…

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Honourable Members?

Honourable Members?

“The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons“. Such might be the reaction to the Prime Minister’s assertion this week that Britain was “not remotely a corrupt country” and that he did not believe that “our institutions are corrupt“. Mandy Rice-Davies’ response comes to mind. Still, there is something impressive in the way he asserted that MPs breaking the rules should be investigated and punished barely days after having whipped his MPs into voting for…

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What Now?

What Now?

If not already done, the sentencing remarks of Lord Justice Fulford should be read by every MP, Cabinet Minister, police chief, Police & Crime Commissioner and anyone else involved in our criminal justice system. Paragraphs 19 and 23 set out eloquently – in words which should be taken particularly to heart by the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary – the importance of law and order and what happens when trust in the police is undermined. As the Judge put…

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One Current Leader. And One Future One?

One Current Leader. And One Future One?

After a week in which: the UK entered into an arms alliance with the US and Australia, promptly decried in lurid terms by China and France: energy prices went up with one energy company going bust and the prospect of more to come; food companies warned of shortages of frozen food; and  the PM had a reshuffle to deliver the much promised “Levelling Up” the Sunday Times’s front page had 3 stories:- Gove ordered to sort out leaseholders’ post-Grenfell problems;…

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The next domino?

The next domino?

In 2019 the US President decided to withdraw US troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, a move seen by many – and certainly the Kurds, who were heavily involved in fighting and defeating IS in Iraq – as a betrayal. In February 2020 the US reached an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, release Taliban prisoners, lift sanctions and facilitate economic co-operation in return for a promise that the Taliban would not allow Afghanistan to host terror…

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Debt of Honour

Debt of Honour

Films from the 1960’s and 1970’s show Afghan women dressing and behaving much like women in the West. Not all women, of course. As in many countries, older attitudes were found in rural or isolated communities. Changes are never evenly distributed in a country. The same could be said of Iran. It seemed as if emancipation of women and what this meant for their ability to decide for themselves what to do with their lives was happening in countries far…

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Two Lessons Learnt

Two Lessons Learnt

7 years ago this month the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse was first announced. Cameron was PM, May Home Secretary and the Brexit referendum not even the teensiest cloud on the horizon. How time flies! After three Chairs, the Inquiry – under the chairmanship of its 4th Head, Professor Alexis Jay (who wrote the report on child abuse in Rotherham, published in August 2014) – has been quietly taking evidence and publishing a series of heart-breaking and devastatingly critical…

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Why are the Tories leading in the polls?

Why are the Tories leading in the polls?

The Tories have been ahead in the polls for months now and by significant margins. Sure, they lost Chesham & Amersham and failed by a tiny number of votes to win back Batley & Spen, both disappointments and, in the case of the former, a possible warning sign. But even so the polls are stuck with the Tories hovering around the 40% mark, sometimes up to 43% and Labour around 30%. Why might this be? Some suggestions: – Boris got…

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