It is perhaps inevitable that, after two years in government, the Tories settled on a local election strategy of holding on to as much as they can. It is rare for a governing party to try to expand its political reach in mid-term elections. But this defensive approach means that Conservatives are no closer to
Hello, I would like to be awarded a knighthood, or something close to a knighthood, for my excellent and selfless work over the years as a journalist. Can you help me with this, and what do I need to pay? Many thanks Rod Liddle The reply to my email arrived within ten minutes. It would
I’ve much respect for the Matlock Mercury: our part of the Derbyshire dales would be the poorer without this lively and conscientious local paper. And were it not for the Mercury’s useful report I’d never even have learned about the county council’s plan. But I do take issue with the headline. ‘Big switch-off to hit
At a well-lubricated dinner the other night at a first-class Chinese restaurant called Red Emperor by the stunning riverside development on the south bank of the Yarra in Melbourne, Australia, my host made me an offer that I very nearly couldn’t refuse. ‘What would it take to persuade to you come and live in Australia?’
Is the hour of socialism upon us? Thanks to the exhausted financial orthodoxies of those who rule the eurozone, austerity is producing slump. No electorate, it seems, is yet ready to elect leaders who go to the root of the problem and reject the European currency, but almost all have lost faith in the Frankfurt
‘Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote/ The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,’ wrote Geoffrey Chaucer, long before scientists realised that wind turbines cause climate change by raising night air temperatures. If Chaucer’s General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales gave us pungent insights into late 14th-century English life, then its modern equivalent
