Brown’s former disciple is now trying, very gingerly, to reconcile Labour with Blairism Douglas Alexander is a politician who has risen without a trace. He is now shadow foreign secretary, the third most senior member of the shadow cabinet. He has spent his career in the service of bigger beasts, first Gordon Brown and then David
At a wedding in the Loire last weekend, in the grounds of the groom’s parents’ small château, an acquaintance from work unexpectedly materialised out of the crowd. In his early thirties, he introduced me to his blonde, gangling wife, maybe a year younger than he. The conversation turned to children: they have four, including a
The title Her Deepness is partly satirical, partly reverential. The woman herself, Sylvia Earle, is an American oceanographer and a global campaigner for maritime preservation. She dropped into London last week to collect a medal from the Royal Geographical Society and her visit coincided with a month-long promotion at Selfridges in Oxford Street. The shop
When my mother died last year, her small 13-year-old sheltie, Nutty, came to live with us in our London flat. I knew it would be difficult to keep a dog in town, but it was a terrible shock to discover how anti-dog the city has become. While taking him out and about on my daily
Ian Fleming understood the attractions of an English summer. At the end of Dr No, James Bond is in Jamaica, his arch enemy dead, his knockout girlfriend, Honey Rider, about to leap into their double sleeping bag. And yet, despite being in paradise, Bond longs for ‘the douce weather of England — the soft airs,
A few years ago, I spent a month in Damascus. I arrived late in the evening but was so eager to see a city I’d long wished to visit — getting a visa had proved nightmarish — that I soon found myself in a little coffee shop round the corner from my budget hotel. I
What do you suppose the chances are of this being the coldest June since records began, or maybe the dampest June since records began? My guess is that it will almost certainly be the most dramatic of some climatic variation since records began; paradoxically, every other month is. Every season is. Every year is. Every
Michael Gove’s plans for education don’t allow for a moment’s pause When I walk into his office on the seventh floor of the Department for Education, Michael Gove is sitting behind his desk with his jacket off. He is hunched over, writing a note on House of Commons letterhead. His left arm is pushed right
An afternoon’s diversion on the way to Constantinople, 75 years ago One day when we were invited to luncheon by some neighbours, István said, ‘Let’s take the horse’ and we followed a roundabout uphill track to look at a remaining piece of forest. ‘Plenty of common oak, thank God,’ he said, turning back in the
When I was asked to select a passage from his work that encapsulated the spirit of Paddy Leigh Fermor, who died last Friday, a crowd of images leapt to mind, from his encounter with the grotesque burghers of Munich in A Time of Gifts to the eerie vespers of A Time to Keep Silence, to the
‘William Shakespeare was the most influential person who ever lived,’ is the audacious opening line of Canadian writer Stephen Marche’s recently published book, How Shakespeare Changed Everything. It’s the sort of bold claim that makes you immediately think of other contenders: Jesus? Muhammed? Newton? Freud? Oprah? And while we’re at it, how exactly should influence
Nearly five years ago, a friend in the diplomatic service was hovering outside the permanent under-secretary’s room in the Foreign Office. Through the open door, he overheard the senior official telling ‘Jock’ not to worry, the FO would be sending a ‘big hitter’ as ambassador to Kabul. They would make sure that the surge of
It is, as David Cameron says, a time to pause, listen and reflect: reflect that for every granny starving and dehydrating on an NHS ward there is quite possibly a patient in a private hospital being pulled screaming into a cold shower. If it wasn’t already obvious that private provision is no panacea for public
The EU’s president and foreign minister are both duds. Eurosceptics should rejoice What puzzles me is that my Eurosceptic friends are not dancing in the streets outside the Brussels Berlaymont. Those of us who still think that, for all its undoubted irritations, the European Union is fundamentally a good thing have been weeping into our
Our womenfolk are taking to the streets again in an attempt to convince us that they should be allowed to be called sluts without men thinking they might be ‘sluts’. Our womenfolk are taking to the streets again in an attempt to convince us that they should be allowed to be called sluts without men
Al-Qa’eda has begun to harness the Arab revolts Since the movement was launched by the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, I have been a sceptic about this Arab Spring and its promise of delivering economic prosperity for all. When it comes to democratic institutions and the rule of law, the Middle East has been
Does it matter who actually wrote a novel – or a political speech? What’s the most distinguished ghost-written book? John F. Kennedy, while still a postgraduate student, put his name to a book that went on to win the Pulitzer. Decades after his assassination it emerged that it was substantially ghosted. Should not the keepers
No one will be amazed that George Orwell disliked Roman Catholicism; it is odd, though, that he seemed unable to leave the subject alone. Even his left-wing cronies found this obsession tedious. The Marxist journalist Jon Kimche, who shared a flat with him in the mid-1930s, complained that his conversation amounted to little more than
Tripoli ‘We have some civilian martyrs for you,’ said the Libyan government minder, with the triumphant look of a Soviet housewife who has just found a bottle of Scotch in the state-controlled supermarket. He pulled aside a blanket to reveal a charred, twisted corpse, blackened arms fixed stiffly upwards, skin seared away to reveal the
Writing a James Bond novel? What could possibly be simpler? Surely all one needs is an arch, semi-meaningless title — something like ‘Never Kiss Death Goodbye’ — then a villain with a camply sinister name, a heroine with an even camper double-entendre for a name, a seasoning of sadism and you are away. But it’s