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“Oh come off it. This is starting to get silly,” writes Boris Johnson in his article this week for The Daily Telegraph.
Starting with the Royal Family, then Gordon Brown and a few ‘celebrities’, the News of the World telephone-hacking scandal has spread, we are told, to hundreds — to the extent that no self-respecting celebrity wants to be thought of as not having been bugged by the ‘gentlemen of the Screws’.
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Sunday blessed the people of London with a lovely Spring morning : bright sunshine, beautiful blossom, more daffodils that you could count, a gentle breeze and everywhere in a certain park the sounds of Spring … and “the gasping sobs of middle-aged men as they tried to retrieve the high-speed cross-court passing shots of their younger, fitter wives”.
Continue reading A hard task — spreading gloom in the sunshine
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Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, puts these questions in his article in
The Daily Telegraph yester-day (March 21, 2011).
The best we can say of this venture, he says, is that, for the time being, it seems the lesser of two evils, agreeing with American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that we cannot sit idly by whilst “this lunatic” massacres his own people. He even expresses pride in the way H.M. Government has handled the matter so far.
Continue reading The risks that attend our noble cause in Libya
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So says Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, in an article in The Daily Telegraph to-day (February 28, 2011).
He draws a comparison between Colonel Mu‘ammar al-Gadaffi and unlamented former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown — pointing out a certain similarity of appearance and their common love of long, rambling speeches on socialist theory (in which he gives the edge, in logic and coherence, to the Colonel).
Continue reading AV — Labour’s death rattle and a gigantic fraud
“The extent to which the audience feels its trust betrayed … bodes ill for the BBC. In the long term the loser will be public-service broadcasting itself ; the winners the revengists of ‘old’ New Labour.”
BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons has recently revealed he will not seek to be re-appointed in the role when his four-year term ends next May.
A few weeks ago, in a letter to Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Sir Michael said the Trust was robust, workable and effective … with much remaining to be done. So what of the background that led to the formation of the BBC Trust and its future ?
The BBC Trust replaced the BBC’s Board of Governors in January 2007. The Government said it was intended to ensure an “unprecedented obligation to openness and transparency”. But one of its first announcements was that the BBC Trust would review the corporation’s UK news coverage, which, whilst seeming even-handed to some, was seen by others as an insidious first step to totalitarianism : more like a politburo’s flexing its muscles.
Back in the time of Sir John Birt, BBC Director-General (DG) from 1992 to 2000 (now Lord Birt and blue-sky thinker), decisions were made to shift ultimate editorial control from managing editors to the DG. In retrospect one can only conjecture whether there was pressure from the Government at that time. Yet, despite a bitter strike by journalists, the transfer of editorial control went ahead.
As regular visitors to these pages over recent months will know, it is rare for Pericles to say anything in a vehement tone.
To-day’s subject however is so important — to the well-being not only of residents of the British Isles but also to those in the far flung corners of the Earth, many of whom will have no access to a computer, many of whom will be largely illiterate — that he departs from his usual conciliatory demeanour.
To-day Pericles urges you to read Prof. Hal Lewis’s letter of resignation from the American Physical Society — an organization once thought of as amongst the greatest bodies (if not indeed the greatest) in the field of physics.
Prof. Lewis’s letter is set out in full at Pericles’s own site, together with his commentary.
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Boris Johnson rails against the centralization of power that has caused the cost of government to rise like a rocket, saying the sensible way forward is to simplify and devolve.
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In an article in The Daily Telegraph Boris Johnson admits — despite the economic rigours the population generally is suffering — to going ski-ing. He does claim in mitigation that it was a cut-price affair with, as he puts it, “home-made sandwiches for lunch, washed down with eau de robinet”.
It is not, he says, just that he loves ski-ing and is addicted to hurling himself down the slopes and that his children are quite keen. A collateral purpose drove him to take this vacation : journalistic research.
Continue reading Ski helmets have a lesson for us … on ‘localism’
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There ought to be parking permits specifically for wheelchair users like the BBC’s Frank Gardner
— Boris Johnson
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Suppose you’re in the car and you are looking for somewhere to park. In fact, you’ve been looking for somewhere to park for the past 25 minutes, and the kids are starting to hit each other and the windows are fogging up so that you have to rub them with your sleeve. People behind you keep hooting because you are going so slowly, and your stressometer needle is edging towards critical as you drift further and further from the place you need to be ; and then suddenly you see a space — a gap between a row of cars of at least six axe handles in length. Enough for you to park!
Continue reading Blue parking badge failing those most in need
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph to-day, reports political editor Andrew Porter, Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, expresses himself shocked by the levels of income tax, saying he never thought he would see the day when other large European countries had lower rates of personal taxation than those in Britain. He fears this high taxation is harming her competitiveness.
In the face of criticism that high taxation is harmful to Britain’s global competitiveness the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have been vague in assuring critics of their intention to lower it ; Mr. Osborne has refused to cut the 50-per-cent. rate on highest incomes — instituted by the Labour government — despite being urged that, although it acts as a disincentive to the entrepreneurial creators of jobs and economic activity, it generates little extra revenue for the Treasury.
Continue reading Boris urges Chancellor, “Explain how you will cut taxes ?”
Internet debate can be coarse
— says Boris Johnson —
but it really does hold journalists and politicians to account.
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But enough of me. Let’s talk about you. Or rather, let’s talk about the small minority of you who not only read but respond to these columns — sitting up late in America, rising early in Hong Kong. I mean the great caffeine-powered, keyboard-hammering community of online thinkers who contribute with such richness to the cyberspace jabberama.