As we see a change of Poet Laureate, the panel on last week’s Any Questions - including the outgoing Laureate, Andrew Motion - were asked to explain the point of the role.

If you run a broadcasting organisation, you hire a journalist who discovers that the government is misleading the public in order to justify a foreign war (but who makes his report in a slightly exaggerated fashion, even though that has no impact on the substance of the accusations), and you back him up in the early [...]

The allegations that Craig Murray made against Alisher Usmanov (see here for backstory) have been repeated in the European Parliament by Tom Wise MEP. This means they are now covered by parliamentary privilege and can be repeated by anyone. Way to go, Schillings.
You can hear the allegations on blip.tv, or download the MP3 file.
Alternately, here [...]

Between 2003 and 2006 I had a blog called “Cabalamat Journal”. That blog is now defunct, but I have a new one: Amused Cynicism.

“The fact that an Iraqi has just tried to blow us up proves that Islamist terrorism has absolutely nothing to do with the war in Iraq. Also, we hate Ken Livingstone.” - here.

Kinnell. Cameron’s Tories are really going for the unexpected candidates. I thought it was far out when they got Zac Goldsmith, editor of The Ecologist and one of the consistent frontrunners for most hated Tory on hatemytory.com, to stand for MP.
But now they’re ditching Steve Norris as their attempt at London Mayor. Good. People made [...]

Hearty congratulations to Troubled Diva, Mike Atkinson, who’s managed to put together ‘Shaggy Blog Stories’ in seven days in aid of Comic Relief.
The book collects amusing pieces from 100 bloggers. I’m in it but you shouldn’t let that put you off.
You can read more about the book here.
The book’s published via Lulu and [...]

Last night Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre used the Hugh Cudlipp lecture to the beat the BBC for its stifling political correctness and left-wing bias. (The editors of the Guardian have printed a transcript, presumably to demonstrate their more open and embracing form of liberalism.)
His basic line of argument - that a national, tax-funded media [...]

There was an interesting item on the Today programme this morning, which was guest edited by Sir Clive Woodward, about boxing and the Olympics (scroll down for the listen again feature to 8.50 am). It has been suggested that investing in boxing, including encouraging boxing in schools, would be a good way to increase possible [...]

Merrick wrote here yesterday in defence of the Citizen’s Basic Income. What I find interesting about the non-debate surrounding it is how a policy so close to the mainstream among polbloggers, could be so far from the shores of ordinary politics. Now, it’s easy to psychoanalyse the bloggers, to see what they see in the [...]

If you’re in the UK, you’ve doubtless been forwarded an email coupon to receive 40% off wine and champagne at the country’s largest off-license chain, Threshers.
If you’re like most of this site’s contributors, you’ve doubtless headed straight down to the nearest offy, loaded up on all the plonk you can carry, and are currently trying [...]

Simon Heffer is not a columnist for whom I usually have much time - although his biography of Enoch Powell was relatively interesting, that was more down to the subject than the author. If anything, the writing style put me off reading the thing more so than did old Enoch’s politics.
Still, Heffer has a piece [...]

Technorati Tags: english+spelling, simon+jenkins, spelling+reform
Last Friday, in the Guardian, Simon Jenkins wrote that he welcomed the decision of the Scottish Qualifications Authority that they would accept text-message spellings in school examinations in “a direct challenge to the English at their most reactionary”. “The dark riders of archaism will protest and the backwoods will howl. [...]

When I’m feeling cheap, which has happened a lot lately, I shop at Asda. (I know, I know, but they’re all bad in their own ways.) The most pleasant way there, not that there is a great deal of choice in routes, is down Clive Lane, which is marked on maps, though it’s really a [...]