Ten Predictions For 2014
- 30 Dec 2013
UKIP will win the European elections Nigel Farage will resign as UKIP leader in the second half of the year Jeremy Paxman will leave Newsnight. Eddie Mair or Nick Robinson will replace him. Abba will reunite for a one-off concert. Scotland will vote No. Belgium ...
How Did My '10 Faces of 2013' Do?
- 29 Dec 2013
A year ago I rashly predicted that these ten people would all go to bigger and better things during 2013. So, was I right? ALISTAIR GRIFFIN Griffin is a singer/songwriter who was behind the Olympics Gamesmakers song ‘I Wish For You The World’ and the Formula 1 theme ‘Just Dr...
Book Review: A Series of Unrelated Events by Richard Bacon
- 28 Dec 2013
I had intended to write this review last night but decided instead to watch The Inbetweeners movie on Channel Four. Someone suggested on Twitter that I should write this review using words from the Inbetweeners. In theory this would be clungingly possible. [See what I did the...
20 (Good & Bad) Personal Reasons to Remember 2013
- 24 Dec 2013
I was given the opportunity to present Drive on LBC after two and half years presenting the evening show. More HERE Buying our new house in Lammas in Norfolk. Winning Radio presenter of the year at the Arqiva awards in July. 2013 was the first year without my darling ...
My Top 100 Tweeters of 2013
- 21 Dec 2013
Each new year I do a list of people whose tweets I have most enjoyed during the previous 12 months. I follow about 1300 people on Twitter but these are the ones who have entertained, informed, educated, annoyed and, most of all, made me laugh most this year. In previous years...
ConservativeHome Diary Week 36: Good Year? Bad Year?
- 20 Dec 2013
I hate the Daily Mirror. Always have. Always will. It employs people who laughingly call themselves journalists but effectively just contribute to a Labour propaganda sheet. And their editor is no better. I hadn’t heard of him until Wednesday evening. His name is Lloyd Embley....
ConservativeHome Diary Week 35: Snogging Jacqui Smith & Other Stories
- 13 Dec 2013
Can anyone explain what our revered Deputy Prime Minister was doing at the Nelson Mandela Memorial Service on Tuesday? No, me neither. I thought his job was, er, to deputise and run the country in the Prime Minister’s absence. He said he had never met Nelson Mandela so quite w...
Liberty Launches Anti-Tory Advertising Campaign
- 10 Dec 2013
This is an advert from the civil liberties group Liberty, headed up by Shami Shakrabarti. It appeared as a full page ad in tonight’s London Evening Standard. It is a disgrace. It’s inaccurate and partial and does Liberty a great disservice. It’s so partisan and inaccurate tha...
ConservativeHome Diary Week 34: Why Can't We See the Chinese For What They Are?
- 6 Dec 2013
Am I alone in feeling queasy at the way David Cameron has been crawling to the Chinese this week in a craven attempt to gain their favour? “We will be the main advocate of China in the West,” he announced on Monday. Pass the sick bag. I completely accept we have to do business...
Attitude Column: The Christmas Dilemma
- 4 Dec 2013
I have been with my partner for 18 years and yet until last year we had never spent a Christmas together. I had always gone to my parents’ in Essex and he to his parents in Kent. In later years he’d make an escape and join me at my parents in the evening, but neither of us fou...
The NHS: Things That Need to be Said...
- 4 Dec 2013
I must be mad. When will I ever learn? I have just accepted an invitation to give a lecture on the NHS to 50 doctors, surgeons and consultants from a London hospital in late January. Why on earth can’t I just learn to say ‘no’? I don’t do a lot of speeches nowadays. My job me...
Would You Like to Help Save the Gay Hussar?
- 30 Nov 2013
The purpose of this blogpost is to invite you to become part of an exciting new venture designed to secure the future of the Gay Hussar restaurant in Soho, a favourite hangout of politicos for decades. I am doing so on behalf of a group of diners and staff, the Goulash Co-ope...
A Question For Lloyds Bank
- 30 Nov 2013
When we bought our house in Norfolk in July we purposely chose a mortgage where we wouldn’t receive penalties if we paid off part of it earlier than planned. So on Tuesday I felt very pleased with myself as I went into Lloyds to pay in a cheque to pay off a small part of the m...
ConservativeHome Diary Week 33: Has Jacqui Smith Looked in the Mirror Lately?
- 29 Nov 2013
I never underestimate the political canniness of Alex Salmond, but his 670 page white paper on Scottish independence was a right old dog’s breakfast. Instead of answering 600 odd questions it provoked yet more of them. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised but the SNP clearly wa...
My EDP Column Is Dead - It Has Ceased To Be
- 25 Nov 2013
For the last seven years I have been writing a column for the Eastern Daily Press, initially fortnightly but latterly every week. Any freelance columnist knows that at some point all good things come to an end, and for me that point was reached today. This morning I got a cal...
Attitude Column: Can You be Gay and be a Tory?
- 24 Nov 2013
Can you be gay and a Tory? Yes, I know it’s a stupid question, but people continue to ask it. The simple answer is, of course you can, but there are still those who believe that the two things are completely incompatible. For most people being gay is completely separate to th...
ConservativeHome Diary Week 32: What Would Ed Say if It Were a Tory Coke Snorting, Rent-Boy Addicted Religious Banker?
- 22 Nov 2013
I’m sure that like most of you I am left gobsmacked by the antics of former Co-Op bank chairman Paul Flowers – the so-called ‘Crystal Methodist’ preacher. In many ways we should be shocked by his drug-taking, but perhaps we’re not as shocked as we should be. The Sun is terribl...
Attitude Column: Do Gay Men Have a Crap Taste in Music?
- 22 Nov 2013
“Loved your column in Attitude,” wrote my Sky News journalist friend. “Brings some ballast to the magazine.” Er thanks, I thought. I’m not sure he’ll agree once he gets to the end of this one though. “Why is it that gay men have such a shit taste in music?” queried another fr...