Archive for the ‘British current affairs’ Category
Why Team GB?
August 18th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
I’m afraid that I have very little interest in sport, but even I could not fail to be impressed by the spectacular opening ceremony in Beijing and the outstanding success of the British athletes over the weekend. Buy why are our Olympic competitors called Team GB? Do we have no athletes from Northern Ireland? Are […]
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Should there be a windfall tax on the energy companies?
August 7th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
The pressure group Compass is is campaigning for such a windfall tax and has set out its case here.
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It’s come to this
August 4th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
As I returned home from a meeting in central London today, I found that my local underground station of Sudbury Hill had something unusual positioned at the ticket barriers. There were several policemen selecting young men to go through a metal detector to see if knives were being carried. I guess this is a sensible […]
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Can Gordon Brown survive?
July 27th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
The fall and fall of Gordon Brown continues … The scale of the decline is well described in Andrew Rawnsley’s column for the “Observer”. It is a slow-motion tragedy that has unfolded over a year now with the end seemingly not far from sight. It is a tragedy because this is a throughly decent and […]
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Another “Cry In The Dark”? (3)
July 22nd, 2008 by Roger Darlington
More than 10 months ago now, I did a posting expressing despair at the parents of missing Madeleine McCann being declared suspects and expressing my view that they were totally innocent of involvement in the disappearance of their daughter. So I welcome the much belated acceptance by the Portuguese police that the McCanns should no […]
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What has Davies achieved?
July 11th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
A month ago, I did a posting on the decision of Conservative frontbencher David Davies to resign and force a by-election and wrote: “All that will happen is that the public purse will fund a totally unnecessary by-election in which there will no serious opposition and a very poor turnout. Davies will destroy his career, […]
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Happy birthday to the NHS
July 1st, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Just five days after my 60th birthday, today we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the National Health Service. I was one the last babies in Britain to be born outside the NHS but, for 60 years, I have – like many millions – relied on it enormously. The NHS is one of […]
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Brown’s first year at No 10
June 27th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
All of the media today mark the first anniversary of Gordon Brown taking over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister. Naturally the “Guardian has a good deal of analysis. It could hardly bee a worse day for anniversary reflections, following on appalling opinion poll ratings for Labour and for Brown specifically and today’s news of […]
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Political blogging in the UK
June 22nd, 2008 by Roger Darlington
NightHawk has been described as a political blog, but I think of it as a personal blog that reflects the fact that politics – both national and international – is a major interest of mine. There are only four political blogs in the UK that have a really large readership: Ian Dale’s Diary Guido Fawkes […]
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Has British politics taken leave of its senses?
June 13th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
Roy Greenslade thinks so – as he explains here – and it’s hard to disagree with him. First, we have the absurdity of a Labour Government making an outrageous attack on our civil liberties by forcing through Parliament provision for detention without charge for up to 42 days by bullying its MPs and even bribing […]
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