So it looks like we’ve identified the new Con Coughlin. Here’s a piece in the Torygraph that blames everything SIS might have done wrong in the Bush years on Tony Blair, built entirely on a single SIS source. When I first saw it, it weirdly didn’t have a byline, although it since acquired that of…
Read More Coughlin 2.0I am really impressed both by this OpenNews post about how to tackle a huge pile of documents, and also by the tools recommended. After all: What I received a month later from Nash County, N.C., were two boxes filled with thousands of printed pages of emails. Double-sided. One of the problems it solves is…
Read More OverviewSo I bought the New Statesman‘s 100 years archive edition for the schlep back to Yorkshire – actually I wanted the Flight International Christmas quiz but I was too embarrassed to be seen buying it without an excuse – and damn, was I disappointed. In fact, I made brief notes on each piece. Unsurprisingly, Kingsley…
Read More In which I contribute to the New Statesman, to the tune of £10This Indy story is making some waves. The first point I’d draw from it is that the UK special relationship with the Gulf states is getting another go-round, and William Hague seems mad keen. As well as a lot of effort to sell stuff, and the town the size of Wigan or Oxford made up…
Read More Reading the newspaper, carefullyLooking back at that post of mine from February, by the way, I notice that Juliette Jowit is another disappearing woman at the Guardian political desk. She hasn’t published since 22nd March. This starts to look like a habit. I haven’t noticed the same phenomenon elsewhere in the paper. So what happens to these women?…
Read More Where are the women on the Guardian political staff?Crisis for doomed Ed Miliband. The Guardian‘s ICM poll is in, and the news is grim. ICM reckons Labour is 3 points ahead of the Tories on voting intention. Since the last poll, the Tories have lost 4 points and Labour 1. That last poll was sensational indeed, as it showed Labour and the Tories…
Read More CRISIS FOR DOOMED ED.Adam Elkus has an excellent post on the fundamental reasons why analytical blogging and journalism are useful. Obviously, being the heir to Abu Muqawama, he’s talking about people who either come up with silly movie-plot threats or else want to invade Syria with an arse full of armies. The point, though, has very wide applicability,…
Read More Machbarkeitswahnhttp://t.co/WhC091O2ie > The Sun will soon know where you buy your cans of lager. probably also a guess at your local #creepy #bigdata — Alex Harrowell (@yorksranter) July 31, 2013 So, the Sun is on the move. This was a bit of a surprise to me, what with News reorganising to separate the UK papers…
Read More Get involved.Speaking of political reptiles, here are some more, dinosaurs this time: One female Conservative MP tells a story about how, in the weeks after the influx of new female Tories into the House of Commons at the last election, some of her male colleagues struggled to tell them apart. Instead they resorted to calling any…
Read More The Guardian is not a good newspaper, it is merely the least bad newspaperSo, another TYR Rewind. Here’s a post on last year’s Treasury Autumn Statement, or rather, on the Guardian‘s pitifully spun reporting of it. As a foretaste, here’s the weekend’s Obscurer piece. Last time out, the worst had been briefed out to the papers over the weekend, thus tanking everyone’s expectations so the sops placed on…
Read More the 6th Army has been destroyed. chocolate ration news follows on Tuesday