Category: “Media”

Imagine that Mayor Ken Livinsgtone had been in contact with, and made odd public comments about, a Labour MP at the centre of a police investigation? Imagine that this had led to an inquiry which, whilst saying Mr Livingstone was not in breach of the rules of the Greater London Authority and the Metropolitan Police [...]

If anyone wants a good illustration of the utter self-obsession of the modern TV journalist, they need look no further than the sad spectacle of Adam Boulton rebutting a JP blog from outside the White House. I mean, with all due respect to JP, whom I love dearly, did the Sky reporter not have better things [...]

I knew something was up when I got a rash of texts about dishwashers yesterday late morning. I was working on a speech at the time, so pushed the phone to one side and ignored them. Then, out on my bike in the afternoon, a fellow cyclist overtaking me in Regent’s Park (an increasingly frequent [...]

I was at the London Labour Party‘s fundraising dinner in Canary Wharf last night. I was fully intending to blog last night after getting back. But I got home just before midnight to find my mouse had died. You can have all the online malarkey you want, but if your mouse won’t go, and you [...]

Polls are the junk food of journalism. They are a cheap(ish) way of guaranteeing a front page lead and (provided it has a suitably negative headline about Labour) a sombre pick up on the morning reviews of the papers. But of course with every passing poll and every passing headline, it gets harder and harder [...]

Good response on Facebook last night when I slipped in that D:Ream‘s ‘Things can only get better’ was one of my ten songs when I go on Dermot O’Leary‘s Time Capsule programme on Radio 2 tomorrow night. It is the first of a new series, and I really enjoyed deciding which records to choose. I [...]

Am still undecided whether to drive or train it to Norwich. Will be a last minute decision. At least the sun is shining, and I have lunch with Delia to look forward to on arrival. I know name-dropping is frowned upon, but lunch with Delia before Norwich v Burnley is a Campbell tradition. I hope [...]

I have bowed to the democratic demands of my Facebook and Twitter friends, and agreed to accept an invitation to guest edit the New Statesman. When I put up an update saying I was mulling over it, a whole load of messages came through basically saying there was nothing to mull, and I should get [...]

Tory blogger Iain Dale, who has many qualities, not least supporting a team that wears claret and blue, suggests I should be hiding away in embarrassment at Peter Mandelson’s ‘tirade’ against Starbucks boss Howard Schultz (didn’t he do the Peanuts cartoons, or was that Charles?) The reason for my embarrassment, says Iain, is that last [...]

I sat recently at the back of a focus group and watched people discuss their favourite and least favourite brands. It was a business rather than a political exercise, but there were as ever some interesting political points to emerge. At the end of a long discussion, in which the economy dominated, and people admitted [...]