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Category: Politics

Christmas Reading – what kind of politicians do we have or need?

Christmas Reading – what kind of politicians do we have or need?

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I wonder what you will dip into over this holiday season by way of escape or relaxation? I took a risk with this book. The title was arresting and the author the recognisable voice of BBC Radio 4s Westminster  Hour. Of course we live in a complex and contested world and one where the quality of public narrative is inevitably variable but what are we to make of modern politics and those who choose this profession? Hardman is a skilled…

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Holiday reading (1) Gordon Brown My life, Our Times Bodley Head 2017.

Holiday reading (1) Gordon Brown My life, Our Times Bodley Head 2017.

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            Having  successfully downsized my living and therefore ‘storage’ arrangements I  think twice about buying a book! I was, however,  immediately drawn to this political autobiography, not least because on the two occasions I met Gordon Brown I found him humane, reflective and generous. Retired politicians, we are told, are generally more attractive than practising ones because possibly they can no longer do any harm. This is a life meticulously well written with a careful attention to detail. There…

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people vote for different reasons!

people vote for different reasons!

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  crystal   I am unjust, but I can strive for justice. My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness. I, the unloving, say life should be lovely. I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness. Man is a curious brute — he pets his fancies — Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury. So he will be, tho’ law be clear as crystal, Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony. Come, let us vote against our human…

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What makes a great politician?

What makes a great politician?

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Disraeli, or The Two Lives Douglas Hurd and Edward Young Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2013 £20 Friends will know of my mild obsession with post second world ward political biographies and autobiographies. They are a strange and mildly unsatisfying genre with few jewels on the shelves. It is difficult to write a life that is completely honest and that seems especially to be the case with politicians.   I have long been an admirer of Hurd who adds another volume to…

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Advent Calendar

Advent Calendar

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 He will come like last leaf’s fall. One night when the November wind has flayed the trees to bone, and earth wakes choking on the mould, the soft shroud’s folding. He will come like frost. One morning when the shrinking earth opens on mist, to find itself arrested in the net of alien, sword-set beauty. He will come like dark. One evening when the bursting red December sun draws up the sheet and penny-masks its eye to yield the star-snowed…

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Writing your life honestly?

Writing your life honestly?

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The autobiography of Jack Straw – an MP for thirty-three years and at the heart of government throughout the longest-serving Labour administration in history As a small boy in Epping Forest, Jack Straw could never have imagined that one day he would become Britain’s Lord Chancellor. As one of five children of divorced parents, he was bright enough to get a scholarship to a direct-grant school, but spent his holidays as a plumbers’ mate for his uncles to bring in…

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Alastair Campbell

Alastair Campbell

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If anyone has any doubt about the sheer complexity and difficulty of the work of a modern-day Prime Minister then this book and all 730 pages of it should dispel any lingering lack of understanding! It takes us into the heart of the work of government, the handling of the press, the management of a political party and the holding together of complex personalities and egos of politicians, their ambitions and their fantasies. It is the fourth in a series…

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The seven deadly sins CEOs won’t admit

The seven deadly sins CEOs won’t admit

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It’s a classic job interview question: “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” At the top of the business world, people seem to have taken to heart the advice to admit no negative traits, just positives in disguise, says Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times. Every week for the past year and a half, the Financial Times has asked business leaders 20 questions including: “What are your three worst features?” Here are the findings:  CEO Sins They are: Control freaks Vain…

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The women who make it possible

The women who make it possible

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As someone who has always admired and liked Sarah Brown – for the dignity she showed through the death of a child and her self-respect whilst her husband was under attack from just about everybody on an almost daily basis – I was looking forward to reading this book. The title was fascinating. What was this tome going to tell me? Scandalous gossip? Cloak-and-dagger political revelations? Sadly, neither. What it did give me was an insight into a role that…

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Power and Influence?

Power and Influence?

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This rates very high amongst the endless pages of political memoirs produced in recent months….. Taking Machiavelli first, Powell marshals voices from Napoleon to Isaiah Berlin to remind us what an extraordinary work Machiavelli’s The Prince is. It grapples with the political arts in states made up of real people, as opposed to peddling high principles for idealised citizens as other philosophers do. “Machiavellian”, Powell explains, need not always mean double-dealing cruelty, for there are times when straight-talking mercy is,…

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The Legacy of Brown?

The Legacy of Brown?

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I think that one of my New Year resolutions will be to give up reading  more news, views and reflections on what did or did not happen to the Blair/ Brown partnership during the New Labour Regime! I made an exception with Richards book as he is one of the few political commentators who I beleive offers an authentic and fair voice. I love his coherance and insight. The book is a balanced misture of criticism and compassion. Richards understands what a…

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Britain is unequal and deeply divided

Britain is unequal and deeply divided

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The Equality and Human Rights Commission is today publishing a 700 page report that shows Britain to be a deeply divided country. The most comprehensive report on UK inequality ever published, ‘How Fair is Britain?’ charts the divergence of life chances from birth through to retirement – illustrating that the gulf in opportunity and outcomes is widening not narrowing. The report reveals that disabled children are more likely to be bullied, that pay disparity between men and women continues to…

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poverty and poetry

poverty and poetry

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    Ariel was glad he had written his poems. They were of a remembered time Or of something seen that he liked. His self and the sun were one And his poems, although makings of his self, Were no less makings of the sun. It was not important that they survive. What mattered was that they should bear Some lineament or character, Some affluence, if only half-perceived, In the poverty of their words, Of the planet of which they…

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Financial crisis leaves over 200 million on less than 2 dollars a day

Financial crisis leaves over 200 million on less than 2 dollars a day

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As world leaders meet for the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York, 20-22 September, a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) highlights that because of the financial crisis around 120 million more people may now be living on less than US$2 a day and 89 million more on less than US$1.25 a day. The report shows that as a direct result of the crisis, output, exports, migrant remittances, capital inflows and aid have all…

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Dementia cost ‘to top 1% of GDP’

Dementia cost ‘to top 1% of GDP’

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An economic, moral and spiritual challenge to us all: The costs associated with dementia will amount to more than 1% of the world’s gross domestic product this year at $604bn (£388bn), a report says. The World Alzheimer Report says this is more than the revenue of retail giant Wal-Mart or oil firm Exxon Mobil. The authors say dementia poses the most significant health and social crisis of the century as its global financial burden continues to escalate They want the…

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Social Justice?

Social Justice?

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A piece of research published today reveals a clear north-south divide. The Tees Valley in general and Middlesbrough in particular are places which became rich on heavy industry.William Gladstone famously went to the original town hall in Middlesbrough and proclaimed it an “infant Hercules”. Go to the same spot now and you find a sad, boarded-up building surrounded by wasteland and a few abandoned, crumbling houses. The area found it increasingly hard to compete in global markets and, over time, government felt…

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Holiday reading…..

Holiday reading…..

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Part One – I hardly dare admit that I purchased this book but it proved a stimulating read….. as I continue to struggle what it is that makes for a respected politician of first rank. For those believers in the present paradise of coalition politics there will be much more of this legacy writing! And for those quick to dismiss beware – we all want to be remembered for something. Having just spent four weeks reading a daily newspaper I…

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The search for dignity

The search for dignity

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 I thought this well worth pondering from  Katharine Jefferts Schori  ( the Presiding Bishop of Episcopal Church in the United States of America. She is the first woman elected primate in the Anglican Communion)   There’s an institution in New York City called the Doe Fund. Its motto is Ready, Willing and Able. Early in the morning, trucks bearing that logo can be found on the streets of Manhattan, and out of those trucks come workers with garbage cans, brooms, and…

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What are the limits of Government?

What are the limits of Government?

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An assumption has grown that ‘the government’ carries the responsibility for making our world a better place, and then blaming ‘the government’ when it fails to deliver. This is one of the decadent habits in our society because the public domain is everyone’s responsibility: that is the essence of the polis – a body of citizens. However, the public domain has lost credibility. Even democracy, in the fragmented environment of globalising nations, fails to build social cohesion. As is now…

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