Politics & campaigns.

John Lloyd (who is one of my moral compasses) writes in his FT TV review (18/19 June 2011) that the BBC's great prides are "enlightenment values and devotion to impartiality". But, as he defines them, are these compatible? Read more...

It's early days, and I've seen no definitive accounts of the mini-riots in the West End of London on Saturday 27 March 2011. But they produce further evidence that the police are being told or are assuming that they should not maintain public order in the face of protest, even if the organisers (or non-organisers) signal that they won't co-operate at all, or much. Read more...

The Today Programme (10 March 2011) asked a  man from Compass (the think tank) and me what we thought about the idea of a Public Sector Covenant. Is there, like the Military Covenant, a special understanding or settlement with civil servants of every sort. I said no.... Read more...

I had an outing on BBC1's Big Questions and on the issue of extremely premature babies missed an important note or two...  Read more...

The British state is right to have a growing international aid budget. How on earth could a screaming right-winger argue this? Well, BBC1's  Big Questions asked my opinion on the matter and I surprised myself thus.... Read more...

I had a fairlydecent outing on the Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 today. Since I was defending the UK's behaviour toward Libya in recent years, that was about the best one can expect, I think. Read more...

Local libraries, like woodlands, seem to inflame the English middle class in a very special way. So it was good fun to go on BBC Radio 4's You & Yours and bat for the closure programme. Read more...

Here, courtesy of the best but most irritating TV news in the UK, is Henry Kissinger on the current Egyptian revolution (if that is what it is). It was a masterclass. Read more...

Yeah, so OK, BBC1's delicious, mostly youthful Countryfile didn't actually say that the alleged world food crisis would be solved by British allotmenteers. But... Read more...