Tag: “Gordon Brown”

I cannot say I agree with everything Roy Hattersley says in The Times today, but I agree with a lot of it. ‘Fight for our beliefs. It is the only way to win.’ That is the headline on his opinion piece. The key word for me is ‘fight’. And he is right too that this [...]

Keen to find out what Gordon Brown said in his speech about Afghanistan, I tuned into the BBC News Channel at 9pm. What bits I saw seemed good. Clear about why our troops are there. Clear about the link to life here. It cannot be stated often enough. And to be fair, in total there [...]

What a truly inspiring and humbling time I had at the new Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit at Rathbone hospital in Liverpool yesterday.  It was not just the evident quality of care being provided for a small number of seriously ill men. It was also the clear emphasis that was put on making sure the views [...]

My God, is it really fifteen years since Hillary Clinton’s efforts to deliver universal healthcare for Americans were defeated in the US Congress? The same year Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party? A lot has happened in both countries since. And as Barack Obama takes off where the wife of his predecessor but one [...]

There is a downside to political frenzy for the political journalists who feed on it. That is that the higher you crank it up, the harder it is to keep cranking higher. There has barely been a day in recent times in which there has not been a TV talking head saying he/she had never known a day [...]

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 [...]

‘Gordon Brown’s attempts to soften his image with a family pet for his young sons backfired yesterday as a canine spin operation went horribly wrong.  Downing Street had been planning to give the story of the Browns’ new dog to The Guardian, who were angry that The Times had recently been favoured with an exclusive [...]

First the good news from London – it looks like All In The Mind might be made into a film. So if you didn’t get the hardback, get out and buy the newly released paperback now to see why Hollywood (oh ok, a very good UK film company) is interested.  But now the bad news [...]

I’ve never fully understood quite why Mirror hack Kevin Maguire feels so bitter, but boy does he? I know he still goes on about some Bill Clinton article he drafted which I am supposed to have given to The Sun. I’ve never had the heart to tell him his draft was so badly written I [...]

As you may have seen both online and in some of the papers today, Alex Ferguson is the front cover of my one-off issue of the New Statesman and inside is a long chat about football, politics, leadership and a fascinating insight into his life and his mind. TV viewers will know that Alex does not open [...]