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Sunday round-up 3 November 2024
Birthdays bumps (gently) for Michael Dukakis, Kenneth Baker and Lulu, 490 years since the First Act of Supremacy and the feast of St Rumbold of…
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Eliot Wilson
Key appointments for the new Conservative leader (3)
Does the party need a deputy leader, and what role could and should they play? And how can a new leader deal with foreign affairs and defence policy?
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Eliot Wilson
1
Budget leaks and briefings are out of hand
Successive governments have revealed the contents of forthcoming Budget statements to the media, it's always wrong and it needs to stop
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Eliot Wilson
2
Sunday round-up 27 October 2024
The end is nigh! Of British Summertime, anyway; birthday wishes to John Cleese, A.N. Wilson, Francis Fukuyama and Glenn Hoddle, and St Abraham the…
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Eliot Wilson
1
Sunday round-up 20 October 2024
Imagine a party for Kamala Harris, Danny Boyle, Ian Rush and "Thunder Thumbs" Mark King: that's our birthday shindig, which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will…
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Eliot Wilson
1
Sunday round-up 13 October 2024
What connects Paul Simon, Edwina Currie and Sacha Baron Cohen? Not an antisemitic conspiracy but a shared birthday! We also remember St Edward the…
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Eliot Wilson
2
It's not unusual: friends-and-relations in politics
Ears prick up at familial connections in our political class but they are frequent, happen in all parties, occur in other countries and are mirrored in…
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Eliot Wilson
Sunday round-up 6 October 2024
Birthday wishes to Melvyn Bragg, Elisabeth Shue and Emily Mortimer, and previously Barbara Castle, as the Church of England remembers William Tyndale
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Eliot Wilson
RIP Michael Ancram (1945-2024)
A genial presence in the Conservative Party who never quite reached the top rank due to electoral setbacks
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Eliot Wilson
3
It was all right in the 80s: things that were normal but now seem mad
A random nostalgic flashback caused me to consider the kinds of things we took for granted when I was, say, 10 years old (in 1987) but are now utterly…
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Eliot Wilson
11
Sunday round-up 29 September 2024
Happy birthday to Lovejoy and Brett Anderson, and previously to Lord Nelson and Anita Ekberg, while we celebrate Michaelmas and World Heart Day
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Eliot Wilson
1
Gove takes the helm of The Spectator
The former Conservative cabinet minister is not the first person to mix politics and editing the Speccie; or the second, or third, or fourth...
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Eliot Wilson
3
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