There have been a number of interesting posts floating around lately about Irishness, and I hope this will be another one of them. Chasing quite a different track of research, inspired by wyvernfriend, I discovered the likely origin of the famous quotation inaccurately attributed to the Duke of Wellington, that "just because one was born in a stable doesn't ( Read more... )

4) Farthing, by Jo Walton / paperskyI almost literally couldn't put this down. Walton's setting is an alternate 1948, where Britain made peace with Germany in 1941 after Rudolf Hess's mission; and her viewpoint characters are a young aristocratic woman married to a Jew, and a homosexual Scotland Yard detective investigating a murder, as Britain slides into ( Read more... )

Last week was insanely busy for me, and I've only just caught up with the news of the death of Richard Holme eight days ago, aged 71. I first knew of him in my early activist days as a student immediately after the SDP/Liberal merger, when diehard Liberals excoriated him as the demon prince of selling out to ex-Labour and later New Labour; his ( Read more... )

1) Lords of Parliament: Manners, rituals and politics, by Emma Crewe ( Read more... )

The link between these people: Brian Faulkner (1922-1977), ex-Prime Minister of Northern Ireland ( Read more... )

What do the following British public figures of varying degrees of celebrity (or obscurity) have in common? They are listed in order ( Read more... )

Further reform of the House of Lords seems very unlikely in the short term after the House of Commons rejectedall reform options. John Alderdice had predicted this outcome to me the ( Read more... )