Tag: “Barack Obama”

I know some of you think I am overly obsessed with football, and Burnley in particular. But I normally draw the line at travelling north for pre-season friendlies. I am only going to our first of the season, at Bradford City this afternoon, to get some final shots and interviews for the BBC programme I [...]

Nice to see George Mitchell hovering in the background as Barack Obama met Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu yesterday. He was looking a bit older than the last time I saw him, but hopefully has the same infinite patience which was so helpful during the Northern Ireland peace talks. Bringing peace to the Midddle East is [...]

So I wake to a lovely sunny day, remember that Fiona is away, reflect warmly on yesterday’s win, delete the latest rash of radio and TV messages asking me to do an interview on MPs expenses, then wonder what to blog about before I go out on the bike. I could resurrect, for one day only, [...]

As the credit crunch bit, there was a danger of a very bad ‘either-or’ situation developing – either we sort the global economic crisis, or we save the planet, but we can’t do both. To be fair both to Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, they have not lost sight of the importance of the green agenda [...]

There are not that many circumstances in which I feel sympathy for that collection of individuals, mainly male, described as ‘world leaders.’ They have reached the top in their chosen path; they have support systems which make their lives, whatever the scale of pressure on them and their time, run fairly smoothly; above all they have [...]

Lots of memories stirred last night as I sat on a panel to help launch the Fabian Society’s latest book, The Change We Need, on lessons Britain can learn from Barack Obama’s victory. Memories because the venue was Millbank Tower’s media centre, scene of dozens, hundreds of briefings and press conferences in the run up [...]

I have already vlogged about my (and Barack Obama’s’) favourite book on politics, Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Her brilliant account of the political genius of Abraham Lincoln was already a hugely successful book even before  Obama’s endorsement, which will take it into a whole new league, marked genuine contribution to history. As [...]