My father’s father’s father was a romantic Turkish politician who ran a small but distinguished conservative magazine, and whose career ended in a series of judgments that were romantic and certainly conservative, but unwise and sometimes reckless. Most reckless of all was when my ancestor took it upon himself, as interior minister in the government
I’m not sure about this old ship business,’ said Marina. ‘Where’s the love-interest? Why can’t we go and see the Hugh Grant thing?’ ‘No no,’ I said, ‘I know it’s all about ships, but it’s gonna be great. Trust me.’ And I was right. They must be wizards, the people who filmed that Master and
As I was staggering round Highbury Fields in a pair of shorts, I saw one I knew and hailed him crying, ‘Tom!’, because it was Tom Baldwin, the political reporter of the Times and arch-friend of Alastair Campbell. To my surprise, there was not a flicker on those Shelleyesque features. He continued his stride. ‘Tom!’
That Lord Woolf, he has a bit of a cheek, doesn’t he? I don’t know if you caught his intervention in the Criminal Justice Bill debate the other night, but it was the usual stuff. He excoriated the politicians (David Blunkett) for trying to fetter the discretion of the judges. He was appalled, said the
Baghdad We could tell something was up as soon as we approached the petrol station. There was an American tank parked amid a big crowd of jerrycan-toting Iraqis. Unusually, the soldiers were down and walking around, guns at the ready. Then I heard shouting and saw the Americans using their carbines like staves to push
Delhi If you are invited to one of these grand Indian weddings, you should jolly well make an effort. I inquired about the dress code, and was told that it would be all right for me to wear something called Kurta Pyjama. So I got the full bollocks. No mucking around. I went to the
Chris Patten is used to rudeness. When he was the last governor of Hong Kong, the Chinese used to call him a ‘jade-faced prostitute’ and a ‘tango-dancer for a thousand years’, and other baffling insults. In these very pages he is called EU Marshal Chris PZtain, a byword for general sell-outery. To the neo-conservatives of
The Saudi ambassador tells Boris Johnson that America is hated and war on Iraq is mad ‘No, no,’ says the Saudi ambassador, ‘this is how you do it. You cannot lift your arm above the shoulder, and you must do it sideways.’ He moves alongside, a big man with a faint resemblance to Leon Brittan,