Christo (who died earlier this month) and Jeanne-Claude were two of our age’s most haunting artists. Their life’s work – because we can fairly see it as a single piece – entailed the planning, project management and execution of the wrapping of ever more unlikely items. Balloons, trees, islands, the Pont Neuf, the Reichstag and the gates of Central Park were all subject to a series of superficially short-lived installations. As one critic said of their work, “to seek ‘the…
Like David Herdson I’m leaning towards thinking November’s Presidential election will be a comfortable Biden win, certainly that’s what the polling and Trump’s demeanour indicates, a lot of this has been driven by Covid-19 and the administration’s handling of it. An American friend sent me this video of anti-maskers in Florida losing their poop over being forced to wear masks. My friend pointed out to me that to plenty of Americans Covid-19 isn’t really something to worry about. These are…
Ladbrokes have finally put up their next out of the cabinet market and to be honest there’s no value in backing Robert Jenrick. It truly is shameful how shameless Robert Jenrick and the Prime Minister are over this scandal. If Robert Jenrick was a humble councillor he’d had been forced out and facing much worse. So if not Jenrick then who? I’m wondering whether to place my money on the Frank Spencer tribute act Gavin Williamson. Given how badly he…
This morning The Sunday Times have done some excellent analysis based on figures from the gold standard Office of National Statistics that shows While the virus threat is receding in London and other urban centres, our research shows many of the 44 parliamentary seats in the north and the Midlands that switched from Labour to Conservative last year are suffering an above-average mortality rate. The red wall has become a blue dilemma for a prime minister determined to make last year’s…
The events of the last three weeks aren’t ones many of us are likely to forget. It started with footage of a senseless murder taking place in real-time: a man pleading for his life and crying for his mother as the life is gradually squeezed out of him by a police officer whilst the pleas of by-standers are ignored. The fact the Minneapolis police initially put out a statement that glossed over this, whilst the union president stood-up for the…
One of the things I like about the Ipsos MORI ratings is that they go back so far so you can make decent comparisons, their leader ratings have been an outstandingly accurate barometer on who will win the next general election, they have been a better barometer than voting intention polls. I thought it would be interesting to see how Sir Keir Starmer’s ratings two months into the job looked, and he’s the best performing Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal…
I’ve always found Shaun Bailey underwhelming and this report in The FT earlier on this week came as no surprise. The Conservative party’s candidate for next year’s delayed London mayoral election has lost the support of senior party officials and donors, with some keen to see him replaced by a prominent name such as former chancellor Sajid Javid. Shaun Bailey, a former youth worker and one of the party’s leading black figures, was selected to take on Labour mayor Sadiq…
“I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:And on the pedestal these words appear:‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’Nothing…