Way back in the late 1990s, I spent a lot of time in court. What happened, see, was that in the wee small hours of a drunken Edinburgh morning, my friend Jonny and I took a shortcut home through the disused railway tunnel that runs under Holyrood Park. I’d been through it many times, being
In a comic-strip cartoon, beads of water apparently radiating outward from the head of one of the characters indicate embarrassment. Lines flying horizontally from a character, all in one direction and tailing off with distance, indicate rapid movement in the opposing direction. Every western child knows this; but were you to show the cartoon to
When I was promoted to being editor of a programme at the BBC, back in the late 1990s, my line manager came and talked to me in a deeply mysterious manner for a number of troubling minutes. He was wary and elliptical and I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. There were things
[audioplayer src=’http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_January_2014_v4.mp3′ title=’James Forsyth discuss the NHS with Charlotte Leslie MP’ startat=1430] Listen [/audioplayer]Pinned to the wall of Jeremy Hunt’s office in the Department of Health is an A1 piece of paper detailing that week’s ‘Never Events’. It catalogues the mistakes that have been made in NHS hospitals that should never have happened: people having
Now that the economic statistics are looking better, people are beginning to rediscover the once-fashionable thought that George Osborne is a great strategist. Things are coming together before the 2015 election in a way which makes life uncomfortable for Labour. I am not sure that ‘strategist’ is the right word, but I do think Mr
I’ve always respected stationmasters, but that sentiment is not universally shared. A distinguished friend of mine across the Channel described François Hollande the other day as ‘un chef de gare, sans aucune dignité’ — and it’s not difficult to picture the little president, peaked cap awry, trousers unbuttoned, haplessly waving his whistle as the last
