A longer version of James Forsyth’s interview with Eric Pickles, the Cabinet’s surprisingly intellectual bruiser There are politicians who shy away from confrontation and those who relish it. Eric Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, is firmly in the latter camp. As we sit around a small table in his room in the House
In ten years’ time Oxford and Cambridge universities could be shining examples of social diversity, their student bodies reflecting the exact composition of the British population, a few sons of aristocrats educated alongside the children of benefit claimants from Teesside and a greater mass of suburban middle classes; all of them learning how to rub
The government’s interference in university admissions is unjustified – and may yet push our strongest institutions to go it alone It is a well-worn tactic for politicians to distract attention from their own failures by picking on an outside target. Thus Nick Clegg’s recent attack on Oxford and Cambridge last month for proposing a maximum
Funny, isn’t it, how the unthinkable becomes the thinkable, then the possible, then the acceptable and finally the inevitable? You can see the process in motion when it comes to the prospect of the Duchess of Cornwall becoming Queen Consort in Waiting. Once, the Duchess was lucky to appear in public without getting pelted with
‘When I’m rushing on my run, And I feel just like Jesus’ son And I guess but I just don’t know, And I guess but I just don’t know.’ Lou Reed Would we be happier, do you think, if we all took large quantities of heroin? It would take the edge off some of the
Yoshiko found she was pregnant and talked to her live-in lover about what they should do. His attitude was not exactly out of the PC book of ‘The Right Things To Say When Your Girlfriend Says She Is Pregnant’. He said he was prepared to marry her as long as she accepted that she would
An interview with Eric Pickles, the Cabinet’s surprisingly intellectual bruiser There are politicians who shy away from confrontation and those who relish it. Eric Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, is firmly in the latter camp. As we sit around a small table in his room in the House of Commons, he entertains with
