Monthly Archives: July 2009

Anthony Painter has been doing a great job of tracking the lunacies of the Birmingham Lib Dems. You may recall that Lib Dem parliamentary candidate and Birmingham cabinet member Cllr Ayoub Khan was condemned for making “sordid”, “scurrilous”, “unpleasant and … Continued

It’s pretty clear David Cameron doesn’t know what that word means, no? So he should be mocked for being hilariously out of touch, not a blue comic in training. I have a lot of sympathy for Dave on this one … Continued

The political reaction to the arrival of Esther Rantzen on the electoral scene has been less than fulsome (See this Iain Dale piece as a representative sample). I disagree. I think politicians should be delighted whenever anyone chooses to ut … Continued

John Rentoul has a wise comment about the intriguing burst of bellyaching currently being fed to journalists. If there’s one thing politicians, advisers and their hangers on (ME! ME! ME!) love to do it is to complain about their capacity to … Continued

This weekend, I realised that my hair was too grey for hair colourant to be used without it being obvious to all I had dyed to turn back time. In other words, the “Just for Men” window had shut on me. … Continued

Dammit, that’s what all these posts mentioning the ACPO/Total Politics blog competition thingy are all about anyway. So I’ll be blatant. My blog’s brilliant, and I deserve your vote in order to preserve my fragile ego. Actually, I fully expect … Continued

Ollas Ostentare – To make a display of pots. Adage 1140, Desiderius Erasmus. I was reading Erasmus’s “In praise of Folly” last night.* It struck me that the peculiarly classical rhetoric but policy vacuum of the Mayor Johnson administration, as … Continued

I suspect that this might be one of John Rentoul’s “questions to which the answer is no”, but still.. Ayoub Khan is the Lib Dem PPC for Birmingham Ladywood and a Birmingham Council Cabinet member. He’s also the source of … Continued

So, Norwich North. A bad result, obviously. Asked the dau before I’d privately predicted a tory majority of around 5,000, and the difference was clearly the unwillingness of previously Labour voters to come out and mark their x for the … Continued

The excellent people at Next left also had an interview with Jon Cruddas yesterday, the content of which was considerably more newsworthy than mine. Well worth a read. Also Next Left’s unnaccountable omission from my blog roll has now been … Continued