Diary

Regular observations of the political scene at home and abroad

Dignified Silence

Years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Peter Carington over lunch at his home in Buckinghamshire. He was 93 years old and the last surviving member of Winston Churchill’s post-war Government.

We covered a lot of ground (Carington had served as Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, and was Secretary General of Nato) but before I left I asked him about the Military Cross he had been awarded as a tank commander in the final months of the Second World War. He refused to talk about it: “Good heavens no, it was all such a rough raffle. Pot luck.” I looked at his autobiography. No mention.

Willie Whitelaw, Carington’s senior colleague in the Thatcher Cabinet, also received the Military Cross during the war. He wouldn’t talk about it either.

Almost all the magnificent wartime generation shared this reticence.

Anthem of the North

The poet and author spent the first 12 years of his life in Ashton-in-Makerfield where he was placed with a foster family shortly after his birth in 1967. Here, reproduced with his permission, is a poem he wrote in 2018 to launch the Great Exhibition of the North in Newcastle

Lemn Sissay

On the Ground – Tackling Crypto-Politics

We talk a lot about the intoxicating stench of big money in politics but politicians often see it as impossible to tackle. How would parties operate without mountains of cash?

Josiah Mortimer

Free from fear or favour

Tracking and cookies. WHY?

Peter Oborne’s