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alexgrant24.bsky.social
Author of Sex, Spies and Scandal: The John Vassall affair: http://tinyurl.com/29mtcjdh | Represented by Andrew Lownie Agency | @alexgrant24 on X | Writing about politics, architecture & history | alexgrant.me
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Posts 23 Comments 27

One of the silver linings of any major UK political event is reading what Chris Roberts, a "senior associate" & in-house pundit of lobbying outfit Cratus, has to say. I've only just come across his analysis of the 2024 election: deferred gratification! 1/4 cratus.co.uk/our-new-gove...

submitted 5 hours ago • 1 comment

RIP #GeneHackman. I don't quibble with the tributes from critics, but as usual they concentrate too much on his art-house films. They barely mention one of his best performances - as a sadistic President in Absolute Power of 1997, with a fantastic cast (Clint Eastwood, Laura Linney, Judy... 1/2

submitted 6 hours ago • 1 comment

Hard to disagree with a custodial sentence for #MikeAmesbury. He clearly started a fight and carried on punching a man once he hit the ground. But politicians are human beings entitled to have a night on the town - and some time off. Court reporting is unclear... 1/3 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Whatever else the German election results mean, they have given us a chancellor who will turn 70 in November yet looks 20 years younger. Merz (born in 1955) is, like Scholz and Merkel, a baby boomer. Germany has never had a chancellor born in the 1960s or later.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Standards are slipping at Balliol. As anyone who has ever been at a student protest knows, the point is to sit in, not walk out. Walking out is greeted by a sigh of relief at the organisers of the meeting you have disrupted. Hopeless. www.thetimes.com/uk/education...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

This is extraordinary. I never knew that Laurence Marks (as in Marks & Gran) was a reporter in the mid-70s - let alone that he covered the Moorgate train crash, unaware that his own father was a fatality. Glad the Guardian still publishes stories that surprise. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Careful, @iandunt.bsky.social. If every govt decision your dislike makes your support for Starmer crumble, there will be a lot of crumbling by 2029. There has been too much hyperbole about this: the guidance was in force. Lobby for a reversal and safe and legal migration routes by all means... 1/2

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

Inaction over this cesspit of a WhatsApp group is hardly a surprise to anyone with long memories in Greenwich. Years of complaints about bullying in its Labour group in the late 2000s and early 2010s were ignored. If a council is safely Labour... 1/2 www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

submitted 14 days ago • 3 comments

What a load of nonsense. Kerr was not alone in the taxi. She was drunk and had vomited and broken a window. This sort of virtue-signalling devalues genuine victims of assault or harassment by taxi drivers. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Of course #andrewgwynne had to go. But the currency of resignation was devalued by Haigh's totally unnecessary sacking. I hope #Starmer learns that he should only sack ministers when he absolutely has to (e.g. Tulip Siddiq). Sometimes it's better to ride it out. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

Objections to Grenfell Tower's demolition are intriguing. Very few large-scale disaster sites are fetishised like this. Summerland, Heysel stadium & the school at Aberfan were all demolished or rebuilt soon after their disasters. Why the urge to preserve Grenfell? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Long overdue. Greenwich Park has always been over-policed, with officious PCs shouting at people for cycling, skateboarding etc. greenwichwire.co.uk/2025/01/22/g...

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Am I the only one to get strong 'Blankety Blank' vibes from the on-stage seating for Trump and Vance's families at the Capital One rally?

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

This is potentially VERY big news - council elections postponed until May 2026 across much of England. It says so much about Britain's creaking constitution, and shambolic local gov structures, that electoral terms can be lengthened by 25% at a drop of a hat. Turkeys voting to postpone Christmas.

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

More extraordinary goings on in my home county of #Northamptonshire. Plans for a new "South Midlands" mayoralty covering Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes & Northants have fallen apart, with councils in Beds & MK saying they want to cut out Northants (ironically... 1/2 www.nnjournal.co.uk/p/devolution...

submitted 44 days ago • 1 comment

This is desperately sad. #TonySlattery was one of those 90s actors & comedians you could really relate to. His smirk in Peter's Friends was infectious and unforgettable. He never had quite the same stardust as his contemporaries Fry, Laurie and Thompson, &... 1/2 www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

submitted 44 days ago • 1 comment

Awful victim-blaming from Alex Salmond's widow. She says it is "deeply unfair" for Nicola Sturgeon to point out that she had to intervene to stop his bullying. But when Salmond was alive he tried to silence critics through threats of legal action. Far from... 1/2 www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

submitted 45 days ago • 1 comment

Remarkable how little coverage there has been of the death of Paddy Hill, one of the #BirminghamSix, a couple of weeks ago. It shows how far Northern Ireland (& its Troubles) have fallen down the news hierarchy, which may be no bad thing. I read Chris Mullin's... 1/2 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article....

submitted 48 days ago • 1 comment

A decade ago, several Labour cllrs (including me) took concerns about widespread bullying in the London boro of Greenwich, particularly by the council's then leader & chief whip, to Iain McNicol (then Labour's gen sec). He refused to meet us & did nothing. 1/2 www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

submitted 68 days ago • 1 comment

Watching Die Hard 2 last night, I was intrigued by its goodies and baddies. It's not just Bruce Willis vs the dodgy guys (a rogue, Oliver North-style colonel, a foreign dictator being extradited to the US, and a corrupt unit of Green Berets). The film is also contemptuous of the news media.. 1/2

submitted 70 days ago • 1 comment

#Winchester 's Great Hall has a C13 Round table that pretends to be the one that King Arthur and his knights sat at. Like many medieval buildings, it's full of myths and misrepresentations. So no-one can complain that the elastic on Santa's beard is visible. 1/2 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 72 days ago • 1 comment

Hats off to Stamford Stone for blithely ignoring the culture war about Cecil Rhodes, and describing him as "a distinguished alumnus" of Oxford in this publicity post about the restoration of Rhodes House. It's a bit like describing General Robert Lee as a "distinguished alumnus" of West Point.

submitted 72 days ago • 0 comments

Great interview with @danfrancis02.bsky.social, MP for Bexleyheath & Crayford (one of Labour's unexpected gains, in outer SE London). He's one of the most thoughtful of the 2024 intake, and his points about Labour's challenges in outer London are spot on. www.onlondon.co.uk/interview-da...

submitted 72 days ago • 0 comments