Westminster used to think that 2012 would be the year that the ‘feel-good factor’ returned. Back in May 2010, all three parties expected the economic mood to lift. Combine that with the Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and it seemed a good bet that, come September, the country would be smiling. Labour frontbenchers feared
So, another year closes and, with it, the window of opportunity for murdering transgendered people. Henceforth it will simply not be worth the effort. Hitherto you could have murdered one of these sorts of person and have been out of prison in rather less than a decade. Now, though, thanks to the Justice Secretary Kenneth
Sometimes it is by catching ourselves unawares that we see ourselves best. That unprepossessing fellow with a dull, crumpled, peasant face and a faintly disobliged expression that you caught a glimpse of in the shop window while Christmas shopping on Oxford Street — oh crikey, that was you. Our looks, however, are not our fault.
My predictions for 2012 1. After the Arab Spring and the Islamist Winter will come Armageddon Summer. It might happen as early as spring but that season has been bagged already. At Islington dinner parties, on the BBC and in the Guardian — after cursory acknowledgement has been made of all the dead innocents —
About ten years ago, over a good lunch, I had a debate with the late Giles Worsley about Battersea power station. The distinguished architectural writer said Battersea was an industrial icon that should certainly be conserved but — like its sister station turned gallery at Bankside — found a new purpose. If an industrial icon
