Articles tagged Diary:
ConHome Diary: In Defence of Craig Oliver & I Really Don't Hate Wales
- 14 Oct 2016
Well, Craig Oliver’s book has certainly attracted a degree of animosity from Her Majesty’s Press. Robbie Millen in The Times called it “hastily cobbled together”, while James Kirkup in The Daily Telegraph is crueller. He suggests that “to read this book is to suffer a form of...
ConHome Diary: The Mess That Is UKIP & Why I'm Being Damned Before I Even Publish
- 7 Oct 2016
I did enjoy Theresa May’s joke about Boris Johnson at the beginning of her main conference speech. It genuinely brought the house down. For those who didn’t hear it, here goes: “When we came to Birmingham this week, some big questions were hanging in the air. Do we have a ...
ConHome Diary: A Tale of Two Conferences & I Reveal a Dark Secret
- 30 Sep 2016
I’ve been to between 50 and 60 party conferences over the years – Conservative, Labour and LibDem. This year’s Labour conference in Liverpool was undoubtedly one of the flattest ever. I’d be surprised if there were more than 40 MPs there. Many of the delegates spent most of th...
ConHome Diary: Hillary Debates The Donald and Why Corbyn Won't be Magnanimous
- 23 Sep 2016
Over the weekend I head up to the Labour Party conference. It’s my 18th conference, but I suspect this will be different to all the others. I’m expecting a very different clientele to be attending. Gone will be the sharp suited youths of the Blair years, present will be a new ...
ConHome Diary: Dave Quits, I'm Playing Kofi Annan & Why Sadiq Refused an Upgrade
- 17 Sep 2016
Brits don’t quit. That’s the quote that came back to bite David Cameron on the arse this week, after he announced his departure from the House of Commons. This decision makes me sad as I have always taken the view that ex-Prime Ministers should continue to play a role in our n...
ConHome Diary: Do Some Lives Matter More Than Others?
- 9 Sep 2016
In the next few weeks we’ll get the results of the UKIP and Labour leadership elections and the SNP’s deputy leadership election. Labour and the SNP have both experienced booming membership growth, but there the similarity seems to end. Labour is languishing at 27% in the late...
ConHome Diary: I've Had a LibDem Sympathy Shag
- 2 Sep 2016
I don’t quite know how I am going to write this in a way which won’t cause confusion, but here goes anyway. There was a LibDem Minister in the coalition government. Let’s call him Sean. That’s not his real name, although I do know his real name. Sean, lucky boy, had his own pr...
ConHome Diary: The Pantheon of PMs, Any Questions & Trumpageddon
- 13 Aug 2016
I’ve always thought all months should be like August. Most political journalists take the whole month off and politicians are largely absent from Westminster. And yet somehow the country manages to struggle on. Indeed, it struggles on very nicely thank you. It’s a bit like the...
ConHome Diary: Craig Oliver's Book, A Boost for the Economy & Trump's Unfitness to Govern
- 29 Jul 2016
“You may have seen I’ve signed a deal with Hodder. Hope all well.” That was a text message I received from Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s former Director of Communications, earlier this week. I hadn’t actually seen that news, so it came as a bit of a surprise to say the least. ...
Attitude Column: If I Want to Watch People 'Fisting' Each Other, Why Shouldn't I Be Able To? (I Don't, By The Way)
- 23 Jul 2016
Imagine you are a member of a private WhatsApp group of friends. One day one of your friends sends a picture of an extreme pornographic act – let’s say fisting. You send a reply making a jokey remark about it but think little more about it. Some months later your phone is seiz...