Political Fictions bonus content: voting in Celebrity Traitors, and moreThe latest edition of the email newsletter for my podcast, Political Fictions, is out and you can also read it in full below. But if you'd like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now: Get the books As well as covering some books in the podcast, we also mention others in the newsletter's bonus content. You can browse all the books mentioned and get them for yourself via my Bookshop.org page (affiliate link). Bonus content: tactical voting in Celebrity Traitors, when the Downing Street door was green and more Welcome ... (more) |
A Proposed Alternative to Coalition: The Reserved Time Confidence AgreementThe prospect of another hung parliament is higher than it has been for years. For Liberal Democrats that raises a familiar question: how do we maximise our influence without repeating the electoral damage of 2010-15? Full coalition is one answer. It is not the only one. I want to set out a competing model: the Reserved Time Confidence Agreement. How it works Under a Reserved Time Confidence Agreement a larger party forms a single-party government. A smaller party (or parties) agrees to support that government on all confidence motions and on supply. In return it receives two things: 1. Thirty ... (more) |
Quite simply, the best book title. Ever.I first blogged about this book a few years ago after having relocated my own copy. It is still the stand out best book title on my shelves, or yours: [IMG: The Art of Faking Exhibition Poultry by George Scott] Yes, this is real. The Art Of Faking Exhibition Poultry, which I discovered courtesy of my niche book collection, is appositely dedicated to "All poultry judges and exhibitors in the interests of the poultry fancy". Much as I have a soft spot for the title used by another Mark Pack, this one is the winner in the best book title ... (more) |
The Joy of Six 1604Lucy Siegle is not impressed by the Guardian's attempt to play down its long and close involvement with Russell Brand: "My favourite evidence suggesting a deeper relationship ... is the stuff on its own website including photographic evidence of young Russell perched next to former editor Alan Rushbridger at Guardian conference. This is framed as one of Alan Rushbridger's highlights on leaving in 2015." "As I started to step outside of the MAGA media bubble, I started to gradually realise that so much of what I believed turned out to be false. I spent a lot of nights in solitude ... (more) |
GUEST POST Joe Meek and an old case of misattributionEveryone makes mistakes, says Matthew Lawrenson. Most are discovered fairly quickly and put right. But sometimes, they drag on for years and years with nobody bothering to correct them, despite all the evidence being available to do so. Glenda Collins was a 1960s female singer with an ill-starred career. A contemporary of fellow London Jewish vocalist Helen Shapiro (though her recording career started a few months earlier), she released three singles on Decca in 1960-61 which flopped. Released from her contract, she had to find alternative arrangements. Luckily, independent producer Joe Meek was on the lookout for new talent and ... (more) |
Farage and the snooperThe Independent reports that new details have emerged of how a close Brexiteer ally of Nigel Farage is using private investigators to snoop on his business rivals as well as journalists. They say that the recent Reform UK candidate Arron Banks, who is setting up a pro-Brexit campaign with Mr Farage, has hired a company called Precision Risk and Intelligence (PRI) to spy on two companies he is currently locked in a seven-year dispute with. They add that tactics include using private investigators to snoop into the lives and business of his targets, including creating a whistleblowing cooperation against insurance ... (more) |
Abdul El-Sayed captained the University of Oxford lacrosse teamEmbed from Getty ImagesLovers of trivia will know that Kris Kristofferson won a boxing Blue for Oxford, but our Trivia Desk has news of another American Rhodes Scholar who represented the university at sport. It comes from England Lacrosse: Former University of Oxford Lacrosse Club defender and men's captain Abdul El-Sayed has become the first Muslim-American, first Egyptian-American, and surely first Oxford Men's Lacrosse Club alumni elected to the United States Senate after victory in the mid-term elections on Tuesday. This is definitely our Trivial Fact of the Day. (more) |
The Future of this Blog.This probably gets too personal at points so apologies for that, but I've decided to keep it rather than trim it out as I usually do, so if you aren't ready for a discussion of my, frankly not brilliant, mental health, maybe do skip it. Anyway. If you haven't noticed by now, I'm pretty bad at maintaining this blog. When I started just over a year ago I had a pretty decent output for maybe the first two months and then dropped off pretty significantly. Part of this was just life, we all have one, (unless we die, but then ... (more) |
It's Wednesday so it must be Much WenlockTuesday was Ellesmere. But this is Wednesday, so it must be Much Wenlock. I spent much of my time there enjoying the Abbey grounds, but here are some photos I took in the town. The half-timbered house above is the one where wartime evacuees are supposed to have come down to breakfast on their first morning and demanded to know who the children in strange clothes they'd been playing with were. (more) |
Money can't buy you love (or votes it would appear!)Apart from the absolutely incredible swing to the Democrats which we saw in the midterm elections in the USA last week one other fact absolutely stunned me when I read on the website of one of the respected national newspapers of America the fact that $9.6 billion had been spent by all the parties put together on the election campaigns. This sum which is roughly £8 billion is almost infinitesimally greater than is spent by all the parties put together in the whole of the United Kingdom at a general election. Proportionately, given the number of voters the UK would ... (more) |