Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
"Within a decade, Britain will hold a referendum on membership of the European Union – and the Yes campaign will find its arguments enfeebled by lack of exercise. Will anyone dare make the pro-EU case?"
Enjoyable account of London's long and expensive journey from candidate city to host of 2012 Olympics. Contract enforces extraordinary commercial demands and allows IOC to act like a state within a state. Was it all worth it?
"Recession has delivered the coup de grace to a quarter century of manufacturing decline. Manchester is by no means the worst hit of English cities, but its northern suburbs are Detroit UK." A smarter growth plan is needed
"The Murdoch scandals are turning into a first-class disaster for the prime minister, David Cameron, and his party, while so far leaving Labour intact." It didn't have to be like this but Cameron's moral blindness has made it so
"It doesn't stop. Won't stop. Can't stop. Rupert Murdoch is going to be run out of Britain. His is a worst-case scenario: A powerful political opposition moving against him, and a chain of evidence moving toward him"
"An unabashed member of the privileged classes, he has somehow managed to win the affection of a Labour-leaning city as it endures the harshest cuts in public expenditure since World War II." How does he do it?
"Two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk." So said a party colleague of David Cameron and George Osborne. And, with the economy falling back in recession, it's a label threatening to stick
If England and Scotland parted, so would their armed forces, hard as the split would be. No country shares its army with another. England would probably want to lease naval bases in Scotland, as Russia does in Ukraine (PDF)
British were right to fight, but wrong not to make some compromise with newly democratic Argentina in the years that followed—for example, by agreeing to share revenues from offshore oil, or to transfer legal sovereignty
David Cameron hand-picked a crew of 30- and 40- somethings as his Tory back-benchers. And got more than he bargained for. They don't toe the line like party hacks. Their rebellions are putting some life back into parliament
Murdoch has been tweaking the British government's tail over Scottish independence and is now remarkably matey with Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond. He does love to back a winner, but what is going on here? Revenge?
Short history of Sealand, self-proclaimed micro-nation on an old oil-rig in the North Sea. It's not actually independent, but it is very isolated. Once a base for pirate broadcasters. Soon, perhaps, a home for Wikileaks?
