The sleeper topic that will corrode the government’s ratings https://twitter.com/hwyeb/status/1138752261901959174 Allow me to tell you the most middle class joke in existence. Q: What do gay men do in bed? A: Eat biscuits and listen to Radio 4, same as everybody else. OK, it’s all in the delivery. Radio 4, and the rest of the BBC, have long term concerns about the delivery of their services too: where is the money going to come from to fund them? This…
Welcome to a very real fantasy Season 3: Episode 23/26 Violence and turmoil stalked the land. The old queen was not yet dead though she might as well have been. Her demise had been long, inglorious and inevitable, and yet that very inevitability gave her stubborn fight against it a redeeming air. It might have done little for her kingdom save stave off civil war for a few months but it had at least done that, as rival armies massed…
A guest slot from Harris Tweed In a rare moment of PB agreement in a recent thread, Casino_Royale and Nick Palmer, himself a former MP, discussed the shallow gene pool which provides too many of our MPs, and the party and parliamentary processes which aim – not always successfully – to keep them in check. Strong whipping, party patronage and a lack of local competition in their seats mean too many members can enjoy a trouble- and blame-free life on…
It was barely 5 months ago that Dame Laura Cox issued her withering report on an entrenched culture within Parliament “cascading from the top down, of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence, in which bullying and sexual harassment have been able to thrive and have long been tolerated and concealed.” Strong stuff. But despite token words of condemnation and promises to learn the lessons and implement the necessary changes, the report – let alone the promised actions – seem to have sunk…
The 1979 Callaghan Winter of discontent press conference – the basis of the Sun’s famous “Crisis What Crisis” headline A crisis broken down into key elements For lovers of scandals and crises, the last few years have provided rich pickings, a surfeit, even. Scarcely an institution has been untouched: the NHS – from Morecambe Bay to the Francis Report on Stafford to Gosport, the police, the charity sector – from Amnesty to Oxfam, newspapers, the BBC, MPs and their expenses, Parliament and…
It’s Time to Scrap the Beer Tie Over the years, several clients have instructed me to help fulfil their lifetime’s dream, by purchasing a pub. My usual advice is “Don’t, but if you must, for Heaven’s sake, buy a freehold.” Running a pub successfully is one of the hardest jobs one can do. One has to manage temperamental staff, satisfy demanding customers who have plenty of alternative ways of spending their money, fulfil endless regulatory requirements, and deal with suppliers…
From ex-LAB MP and longstanding PBer Nick Palmer It’s pretty widely-believed that politicians are all in it for themselves – the fame, the money, the sense of power. On the whole, that’s not true in most democratic countries. Fame is a double-edged sword: the media will build you up and then tear you down. If you’re good enough to get a Cabinet salary, you’re good enough to earn more for less work outside. And few retired politicians report that their…
https://twitter.com/election_data/status/1003977706999046145 Rail chaos today is partly due to decades of underinvestment. Last year we found that the North of England has been underfunded by £59 BILLION relative to London over the past 10 years #OneNorth pic.twitter.com/A4IHDyubuK — IPPR North (@IPPRNorth) June 5, 2018 https://twitter.com/centrefortowns/status/1003554289447526400 A stat which never fails to stun: the UK has seven of the 10 poorest regions in northern Europe. — George Eaton (@georgeeaton) June 5, 2018 Infrastructure is a grand word. Politicians use it with a…