In a few days time, and after three and a half eventful years, I will no longer be living in Bradford. As I type this, the sun is shining and the skies are blue on a lovely May afternoon that is beginning to fade into evening. Given such a scene, it’s difficult to contemplate leaving: […]

I can imagine what the remainder of the United Kingdom would be like without Scotland. Once the divorce became final, no doubt the country would be sombre, an emotional state brought about by the departure of a certainty. I suspect that an updated Union Flag would reflect the prevailing melancholy: the simplest change would be to […]

Signs of the imminent election can be seen throughout Bradford: a drive down Upper Rushton Road provides ample evidence of support for Labour’s Councillor Mohammed Shafiq. A few diamond shaped orange Liberal Democrat signs are present along Harrogate Road. Yesterday, I drove through Toller ward and was almost overwhelmed by the number of red banners […]

So, I quit the Liberal Democrats and joined Labour. I’ve been disgruntled for some time. Every time I saw a Liberal Democrat minister or MP appear on television meekly defending the policies of the Coalition government, I cringed. A tinge of nausea followed whenever I recalled I was donating money to this farce. I tried […]

As it turned out, those who murdered drummer Lee Rigby were about as nondescript as you could get. The horrifying video of Michael Abedolajo holding blood soaked blades indicated he was wearing nothing more extraordinary than blue jeans, a hoodie and running shoes. A photograph of his counterpart showed he was similarly difficult to spot […]

It was a marked contrast to the flashbulbs and glory of President Obama’s re-election; on November 15, I awoke at my usual time, 5:30 AM, fed the cats, made coffee, and took out the trash. Then I walked down to the community centre attached to the local Catholic primary school; the sun was not quite […]

This past weekend, I doubt I could have been more away from it all: I stayed in a holiday cottage in the middle of Cumbria. When I looked out the window, I could see the mountains rising in the distance, with rolling fields below. On Sunday, the landscape was blasted by wind and streaked with […]

It’s very clear that Nick Clegg doesn’t watch “The Thick of It”; in the last episode, the hapless (presumably Tory) minister Peter Mannion (played with expert grumpiness by Roger Allam) is rushed back from a vacuous, cliché laden retreat to address a crisis. En route, he’s offered a selection of ties: he rejects a rainbow […]

There are many reasons why we should damn Tony Blair and his minions; the nonsensical and murderous Iraq War, the now-ubquitous presence of closed circuit television in our national life, the exemption for Formula One from tobacco advertising rules, and the ever-widening separation of the Labour Party from the trade unions. However, perhaps one of […]

Every Olympics contains elements of both triumph and disaster. The 1972 Olympics in Munich were notable for both a terrible terrorist incident involving the Israeli weightlifting team and Mark Spitz’s accumulation of seven gold medals, a feat not surpassed for over 30 years. The 1976 Olympics in Montreal are remembered both for Bruce Jenner’s world […]