Archive for the ‘Politics’ category

Queen’s Platinum Jubilee an opportunity for newly named honours

Sunday, 13 June 2021

With the recent publication of the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, we yet again have voices calling for the word “Empire” to be removed from the name of those honours. I addressed this issue back in 2016, and do not have much else to add to what I said then. In summary, you can not rename […]

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Grow up!

Monday, 11 January 2021

I’ve never been much of a fan of Boris Johnson. His antics were mildly amusing when he was Mayor of London, a position that was created to be filled by personalities as much as politicians. However, his behaviour was often inappropriate and damaging when he became Foreign Secretary, and the mind boggled as to what […]

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Time to end uncivil and nasty politics

Sunday, 8 November 2020

George W. Bush has congratulated Joe Biden on winning the US presidential election, and called him a “good man” and the election “fundamentally fair”. Many of us were not particularly impressed with Bush when he was president, but then we could never have imagined anyone as awful as Donald Trump holding that office. Bush’s statement […]

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Boris Johnson and bus deregulation

Tuesday, 23 July 2019

With the unfortunate news that Boris Johnson is to be the next prime minister, I thought it a good opportunity to highlight a post from 2007. Johnson had written in his Telegraph column how bad he considered the bus network in London to be, suggesting that London should adopt the system common throughout the rest […]

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Tuition fees: Blunkett should do more homework

Sunday, 20 January 2019

Former Secretary of State for Education David Blunkett wrote a piece for the Guardian last week, arguing that instead of cutting university tuition fees, the government should reduce the interest rate that applies to the loans that cover repayment of the fees. I am not going to argue one way or another when it comes […]

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E-cigarettes should not be allowed on buses

Friday, 17 August 2018

I have sometimes found the debate on e-cigarettes a little puzzling. Some experts argue that they are probably not completely safe, and therefore that they should not be allowed, or at least that they should only be allowed on prescription, or from chemists. If e-cigarettes were a completely new, stand-alone activity that had been invented, […]

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Garden Bridge has fallen down

Saturday, 29 April 2017

At last a piece of good news. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has finally withdrawn support for the proposed Garden Bridge across the River Thames, effectively killing the project. After a report by a committee of MPs earlier this month said the bridge should be scrapped, any other decision on the part of the mayor […]

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Renaming honours

Sunday, 9 October 2016

Former footballer Howard Gayle made headlines for a second time this week for declining an MBE, this time suggesting that the name of the honour should be changed to remove the reference to the British Empire. It is important to remember that the “Most Excellent Order of the British Empire” is an order of chivalry, […]

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Corbyn must go

Saturday, 2 July 2016

When Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader last year, it seemed rather like a sideshow to the “real” politics in the country. It was mildly amusing to see him politely ask questions e-mailed by the public at Prime Minister’s Questions, with David Cameron politely answering. More recently, the weekly sparring session returned more to its usual […]

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Why give some people more democracy than others?

Sunday, 26 June 2016

The UK’s vote narrowly to leave the EU was not uniform across the country. For example, in London, nearly 60% of people voted to remain in the EU. In Scotland, 62% voted to remain. And in Oxfordshire, nearly 57% of people wanted to stay. However, in the post-referendum fall-out, it seems only one of these […]

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