Alastair's Blog

I was pleased that Gillian Tett of the Financial Times backed the call  I made for a Chilcot/Leveson style inquiry into the banking disaster when we appeared on This Week last night. When Andrew Neil asked for a ‘yes/no’ answer to the question whether Sir Fred Goodwin should have lost his knighthood, Michael Portillo got [...]

I am on the sofa with Michael Portillo tonight (if you get my drift) listening to the wit and wisdom of Andrew Neil, presenter of the BBC1 This Week show. We will doubtless be chatting banks and bankers, Dave and Ed, and all the stuff you’d expect of a political programme looking at some of [...]

I’m not sure what to make of this Sir and now not so Sir Fred Goodwin. He was clearly up to all sorts that he shouldn’t have been and RBS became a disaster area under his tenure, for which we are all still paying a price. But it wasn’t the only disaster area. And he [...]

Yes that was me tweeting in German last night, digging into my modern languages education to remember all I could, and surprised how much that was. Truth is, as I am about to say to a conference in Berlin when I speak in English, French is the dominant foreign language in my head, and when [...]

Endlich, enfin, AT BLOODY LAST … Europe’s leaders are starting to realise that they might have to do something beyond enjoying the scenery in Davos to address the problem of youth unemployment. This morning’s Observer leads on the raising of jobs and the young to the top of the agenda for the upcoming EU summit. [...]

Even those who would never dream of watching a football match – they do exist, these sad souls – must surely be aware that there is added spice to the Manchester United-Liverpool rivalry when they meet today. The same said football-naysayers must have a vague sense of a row between Manchester United’s Patrice Evra and [...]

I hope someone at Transport for London is reading. I hope said TfL person, on reading to the end, will take a few minutes to try to find the person I am writing about, and reward him in some way. Yes, it’s one of those ‘restores your faith in human nature’ times. The person in [...]

I am trying my best to get used to this ebook thing, having ‘a book out’ but with nothing to give to friends, nothing to sign for people who ‘buy’ it, no physical product to point to as you talk about it. So last night, when I was talking about diaries with fellow diarist and [...]

The airwaves filled up nicely for the government yesterday, backed by constant use of rag headlines from rag right-wing papers, with the line that most struggling families would be ‘happy’ with £35000 a year. And so they might. But the members of those ‘most families’ eagerly found by TV reporters to agree with the government’s [...]

Despite feeling like death warmed up on waking – am on antibiotics for a chest infection and anti-depressants for Le Chien Noir – I enjoyed the BBC Big Questions debate. I know Nicky – no relation – Campbell inspires mixed views, but I think he holds the ring in live, and lively debates, really well. [...]