I left the north, I travelled south (ardent Smiths fans can fill in the rest), at a time when Thatcherite Conservatism was something of a swearword in most of England’s northern territories. So as David Cameron’s ascent has switched a Tory victory from possibility to likelihood, I’ve been itching to find out how Brand Dave is faring – and have been making a Radio 4 documentary to find out. Teasing [...]

So by the time you read this, the gates of Glastonbury Festival 2009 will be open. There couldn’t be more activity here on the farm at the moment – in every corner, day and night, people are creating amazing things. To be honest, I thought it would be hard to beat last year’s energy levels. But this year everyone has really pulled out the stops.

It occurred to me recently [...]

In the recent Euro elections, I stood as lead London candidate for NO2EU (No To EU – Yes To Democracy). We were still waiting for the London declaration in the early hours of Monday morning when we found out the British National Party had won two seats in traditionally Labour-voting northern heartlands.

Labour’s historically low vote share came as no surprise to me: the anger and disillusionment with the political [...]

The past week brought yet another chapter in the most drama-packed triangular relationship of modern times: that between Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson. When Mandelson was brought back to the cabinet by his old arch-enemy last year, I had actually forgotten writing in the Independent in 2001 – after Mandelson’s second resignation – that “though Mr Brown’s allies will split their sides laughing at the very suggestion, tears [...]

Visiting Zimbabwe undercover has been a perilous undertaking in recent years. This time, I’m still apprehensive, but very relieved to land. Earlier in my flight, with only one engine working, we had to go back to Johannesburg. After my last visit, Didymus Mutasa, then minister for state security, demanded that the secret police, the dreaded CIO, explain how I had “sneaked” across the border. He said if I came again [...]

Maybe you live out alternative lives through your children. If so, I am now variously a battling defence lawyer, a film producer just back from Cannes, another journalist and – this week – a restaurateur. We are in Barcelona on grandchild-minding duty while our youngest daughter and her husband open their sixth restaurant. Gordon Ramsay is nowhere in sight; though, to some Catalan bemusement, Delia Smith popped in the other [...]

Writing my autobiography this week has been repeatedly interrupted by interviews about the great expenses scandal. Like most of the public I have been amazed at some of the goings-on. Up until I left the House at the 2001 election, the big fiddle was MPs sharing a car home and then each claiming the mileage. At that time the additional costs allowance (ACA) was £10,000, which just covered the cost [...]

A major academic event this spring will be Jerry Fodor’s lecture “What Darwin Got Wrong”, at 5pm on 12 May at University College London. Fodor, a professor at Rutgers, is America’s leading philosopher on the physical sciences. His theme, adumbrated in a memorable TLS article two years ago, is a rebuke to the maniacs who spoiled the centenary earlier this year by portraying Darwin as God. It takes place at [...]

John Updike wrote that “his novels made more of a stylistic impact upon me than those of any other writer in English living or dead”. He was referring to Henry Green, whose novel Concluding I am currently reading with the pleasure of a late convert. Updike, as an addictive similist, must have been impressed by Green’s elegant connections. Early in the opening pages of Concluding, he writes: “As she watched, [...]

Even though I no longer have a real job, according to my children, and only one of them is still at school, the end of term always comes as a relief. I have been a school governor for almost 17 years and for the past nine months I have been chair of two governing bodies at the same time. So the holidays signal a temporary halt to the meetings, the [...]