Song Networks

The Conservative party has breathlessly announced the fact that Coronation Street star William Roache (aka Ken Barlow) has backed their opposition to Labour’s “death-tax” plans. This comes a mere 24 hours after David Cameron (in the words of the Evening Standard) “hit out at Lily Allen’s ‘unsuitable’ pop songs”. I don’t know if readers agree, but I am so pleased at the way in which this

Whoever walks into No 10 after the election will face a desk overflowing with more and worse problems than any incoming Prime Minister since Winston Churchill in 1940. Certainly Margaret Thatcher faced a trades union movement led by insurrectionists who had already brought down Edward Heath and Jim Callaghan, and an economy in terrible trouble

Can David Cameron stop your children having sex? The Tory leader told GMTV of his hopes to fight against the creepy and sinister sexualisation of children. DC said: ”We all know as parents, I have got two young children and there will be many watching this programme, that you do your best as parents but there

Of course David Cameron is right to say that advertising and marketing must be responsible (or be made to be responsible) in the way that they appeal to children. What he describes as the “premature sexualisation” of childhood – particularly by inducting children into adolescent culture at much too young an age - is grotesque. And it began a good thirty

Poor Hilary Benn has reached the barrel’s bottom and is scraping hard.  Our near-anonymous Environment Secretary can find nothing better to do with his time than re-open the hunting issue. I appreciate there’s an election on the horizon and he’s anxious shore up Labour’s core support, but he could at least try not to be

Britain’s public finances continue to deteriorate. Our deficit is now 12.6 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is 12.7. The United Kingdom must pay more to borrow than Italy or Spain (hat-tip, Ambrose). In fact, the only thing preventing a Greek-style crisis is market’s belief that things will improve after the general election. Paradoxically, the better the

Here are some delicious images from the geniuses at ConservativeHome. If you have a better idea, please email it to them. Do political parties still bother with the actual, you know, posters, or has the image war migrated entirely to the web?

An email pops into my inbox from Eric Pickles. “Dear Will,” it begins, “As we get into the last few months before the General Election, let’s remember what’s happened in the past few years. The Conservative Party has come a long way since David Cameron became leader. People can see that the Party is back

The implosion of the dysfunctional Cameron-occupied Conservative Party carries on apace. The enforcers in Wisteria Mansions are enraged because yet another party activist has pointed out a home truth to these naked emperors. Councillor Beverley Connolly, a Tory councillor in Surrey, has condemned the CCHQ-controlled ‘A-List’ selection process in the safe seat of Surrey East,

My friend Joan McAlpine has brought it all back in an excellent post on her Go Lassie Go blog: Where were you on Mandela freedom day? I was in Hong Kong, where I was a political reporter for the South China Morning Post, and I spent the day glued to the box witnessing history. There was a

A Tory frontbencher told me the other day that trust is a big issue on the doorstep. After the revelations about MPs’ expenses, voters are unwilling to believe anything a politician says. And despite his lead in the polls against Gordon Brown on personal qualities of leadership, that applies to David Cameron. It’s an issue