Reality television, as George Galloway will tell you, is a fabulous way for a politician to raise his public profile. Still, one imagines Jim Murphy could have thought of better ways to make his mark on the national consciousness than being outed as a...
Sun 22 Mar 2009 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
There are some bruised egos among the ranks of Britain's economic commentators, as the global financial crisis lurches from one tumultuous stage to the next. “What I think is of little importance,” groaned Anatole Kaletsky in The Times a fe...
Mon 09 Mar 2009 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
At the height of a national panic over BSE in May 1990, agriculture minister John Gummer was in the vanguard of efforts to reassure the public over British beef. Tired of speechifying, Gummer decided to give his calming message a human face – spe...
Mon 09 Feb 2009 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
The summer of 2004 was a good one for Fred Goodwin. Four years into his time at the helm of Royal Bank of Scotland, it's fair to say he'd made his mark: top of the Scottish Power 100, incumbent European Banker of the Year, and to cap it all, a knightho...
Mon 26 Jan 2009 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
“I hear that’s a good read.” Leafing through Alastair Campbell’s debut novel in a Glasgow cafe, it’s only when he taps me on the shoulder that I realise the man at the adjacent table is the author himself. But then, Tony ...
Sat 06 Dec 2008 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
Most of us weren't there to check, but it's probably safe to assume that Edinburgh student unions didn't have to adopt a "one in, one out" policy on the night George Bush sealed his second presidential term in 2004. The queue stretching across Bristo S...
Sun 09 Nov 2008 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
If a decade as the only hope for UK hip-hop has got to Roots Manuva, he's certainly not letting on. “I'm just like a kid in a sweet shop,” he grins, reclining backstage at the Liquid Room with an adoring redhead and a mountain of Guinness. ...
Mon 13 Oct 2008 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
A quarter of a million Britons risked seven-year jail terms last month to buy ecstasy from dealers who could face life in prison. That’s what the law says, anyway. Since 1977, the Home Office has categorised MDMA as a class A illegal drug, reflec...
Thu 02 Oct 2008 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
There's just no stopping Sarah Palin. A Democratic presidential campaign that seemed almost impregnable three weeks ago looks newly unsettled as John McCain's glamorous, moose-hunting running mate mops up women and conservative voters from Nevada to Ne...
Fri 19 Sep 2008 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
To father two children within weeks of each other, while conducting simultaneous affairs with three different women, might strike many as impressively energetic for a man of advancing years. If Ken Livingstone is to be believed, however, these exploits...
Thu 24 Apr 2008 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
When Gordon Brown encouraged British servicemen and women to wear their uniforms in public, he must have had at least an inkling of what would follow. Sure enough, Friday saw the revelation that staff at RAF Wittering had been instructed to venture out...
Sun 16 Mar 2008 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
John Stuart Mill’s famous declaration that “over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign,” has come in for a battering of late. Two reports issued on the same day last week bemoaned this country’s appa...
Tue 20 Nov 2007 by Simon Mundy | Read more »
