Alastair's Blog

As an obsessive speller, I was horrified to see that in twittering on a speech I did on the environment yesterday, I mangled the word environment into ‘environmenent.’ I blamed this rare mis-spell on the fact that my tweet was about John Prescott, and I was therefore suffering from Subconcious Wordmangling Syndrome. Then someone pointed [...]

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 [...]

At a q and a I did last week, someone asked me what made Tony Blair nervous. ‘Big set piece speeches,’ I replied, instinctively. I’ve thought about it a bit more since, and I think the instincts were right. My diaries record several instances of him saying, before Budget debates in Opposition, or Queen’s Speech [...]

The two are not directly related, but sum up the day ahead. Off shortly to the BBC to film a piece for Comic Relief on mental health. Comic Relief are one of the big backers of the Time to Change campaign aimed at ending mental health discrimination. Some have suggested that kind of money would [...]

I thought I knew North London fairly well. So whenever I’ve seen ‘The Chocolate Factory’, I’ve always assumed I knew what it was. Indeed, as we parked the car before last night’s fundraiser for Hornsey and Wood Green Labour Party, saw it was taking place next to the Chocolate Factory, and Fiona asked ‘what’s The [...]

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 [...]

I’m off to a meeting this morning with Cathy Gilman, chief executive of Leukaemia Research, to review the charity’s plans for our fiftieth anniversary next year. Every organisation has a history but I think ours is particularly symbolic of the role charity plays in British culture. It started literally with one child’s death almost sixty [...]

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 [...]

Thanks to everyone (particularly Charlie, which nonetheless doesn’t qualify) for suggestions of people instantly recognisable by first name alone. I kicked off with Delia in advance of my lunch with her at Norwich v Burnley yesterday, and yes, to those who asked on my Facebook page, there was custard with the treacle sponge. One or [...]