Blogs

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. According to The Times a couple of weeks ago, youngsters leaving school are beginning to turn their backs on formal higher education, ditching plans for university in favour …

And the government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from this earth There’s an old saying that if voting changed anything, they’d abolish it. As an aside, I think Ken Livingstone used it as the title of his autobiography. Reading the news these …

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us Stop me if you have heard this before. We have a Prime Minister who, two years in to his Parliamentary term, is more unpopular than his …

  I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak’st”. “Gracious madam, I that do bring the news made not the match”. The itinerary for next month’s NMBS Conference in Benidorm (I can read a map, deal with it) came through to my inbox last week. Lots of lovely …

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue… Pride: noun, feeling of satisfaction in oneself due to one’s actions of the actions of those to whom you feel a connection There are things afoot in the world to make one want to …

There’s small choice in rotten apples. You know that old saying about people who live in glasshouses should refrain from stone-throwing? Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the Prime Minister, Sir Kier Starmer, for whom, it would seem, that phrase is astonishingly apt. Sir Kier, as Leader of …

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience Ever get that sense that you spoke too soon? This time last week I was writing about the surprising fact that there appeared to have been a ceasefire called in the …

It is a tale told by an idiot, all sound and fury signifying nothing Last night, I went to bed wondering if this is what it must have felt like to be alive during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that whisper in the head of “what happens if we wake up …

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. I really, really hate the thought of being one of those commentators who is always talking things down for the sake …

Keep your face always toward the sunshine — and shadows will fall behind you. Those of us with longish memories will recall the step-change in the way homes are heated that was the net result of the changes to Part L of the Building Regulations in 2005. That was the …