Click over here for the British Film Institute’s Jonathan Ross-narrated interactive interwebnet feature thingy on the history of the Ealing Studios. This may have something to do with what my brother Michael has been working on recently, in the increasingly lengthy gaps between blogposts. I’m not quite sure.
One of the Virtual Stoa’s French Affairs Correspondents writes:
“Following the long-awaited news on that other political Titan Tim Collins CBE, we present an update on Laurent Fabius, Chris’s old acquaintance who is, twenty years after he stopped being French prime minister, seeking to be the Socialist Party’s candidate for President of the Republic in 2007.”Readers may like to be reminded that, the Stoa’s man is still - despite media excitement around rival contender S�gol�ne Royal, and despite our period of silence on the subject since January - very much in the race.
“He even has his own website, complete with regular podcasts! And although I lack the appropriate technology to listen to such things, it would appear from the title that the following effort will be of particular interest to Stoa readers in the UK: Pour gagner en 2007, la gauche ne peut pas prendre pour mod�le Tony Blair.”
I’d rather taken my eye of the bald-headed �l�phant, so it’s good to have an update.
“I felt that God wanted me to follow a path into Politics.” Over here.
In David Cameron’s new classless Conservative Party, etc., is the Amber Rudd who appears on the A-List the same as the Amber Rudd who is credited as “aristocracy coordinator” for the film Four Weddings and a Funeral and who, according to an article in the Evening Standard was a “”posh” adviser… [who] stopped the cast saying things like toilet or serviette”? Or is there another Amber Rudd I need to be knowing about?
It’s been a frustrating year for Tim Collins Watching over here at the Virtual Stoa. He’s kept a very low profile since the voters of the South Lakes area decided that they’d rather not be represented by him in Parliament, thank you very much, and I’ve basically had no idea what, if anything, he’s been doing with himself since then.
Now there’s a chap called Tim Montgomerie, who thinks more highly of Iain Duncan Smith than most people do, and who runs the Conservative Home blog. He’s been performing a service to the nation by publishing the names of people on Mr Cameron’s A-List of priority Tory candidates for parliament, names that, apparently, Tory Central Office would prefer be kept secret.
There was general rejoicing, obviously at the inclusion of Tim Collins on the A-List (an A-List without TC x-MP CBE would naturally discredit itself). But even more excitingly, he’s also posted a long, long comment the same page, explaining why he thinks he lost: tactical voting, “big money”, postal voting anomalies and statistical fluke. And let’s hope this is just the start of his career of blog-commenting.
UPDATE [6.40pm]: On reflection, I think the title of this post should have been, Tim Collins: I Blame Quakers.
When’s the bloody “A-list” going to be published, so we can all have a good laugh?
John Smith, leader of the Labour Party, 1992-4, born 13 September 1938, died 12 May 1994.
James Connolly, socialist and Irish patriot, born in Edinburgh, 1868, shot by the British, 12 May 1916.
There’s an archive of some of his writing here.
Kim Philby, Cambridge spy, born 1 January 1912, died 11 May 1988.
Roque Dalton, Salvadorean poet and revolutionary, born 14 May 1935, killed 10 May 1975.
A bit more over here.
Ruth Kelly, over here: “I firmly believe in equality and that everyone should be free of discrimination and I will fight to the end to make sure that’s the case.”
“Fighting to the end” apparently includes failing to turn up to parliamentary votes on an equal age of consent for gay men, on the civil partnership legislation, on repealing clause 28, and so on, and it’s all OK because, in some more of Ruth Kelly’s words, “Everybody is entitled to express their views in free votes on matters of conscience.”
Ruth Kelly is now minister for women, and her “communities” department also covers wider equality issues.
(Actually, I’m not sure these were free votes; I think they were whipped votes, but where the whips indicated that it was sort-of OK to plead conscientious objection and stay away, so I don’t think Kelly is quite right here. But perhaps someone who pays more attention than I do can clarify.)
Elias Motsoaledi, South African trade unionist and anti-apartheid militant; one of Nelson Mandela’s co-defendants in the Rivonia trial, he spent twenty six years on Robben Island, and died on the day that Mandela was inaugurated as President. Born 26 July 1924, died 9 May 1994.
Here’s a scan of the business card for one of my favourite Indian restaurants in Oxford. The back always makes me giggle, because it prompts memories of reading The Concept of Mind as an undergraduate. (The rehabilitation of Cartesian dualism starts here?)
John Stuart Mill, English liberal, philosopher, political economist, feminist and, as it happens, socialist (see also here, for Mill’s further thoughts on the matter); born 20 May 1806, died 8 May 1873.
Andromache is proving really tricky to photograph these days — either I leave the flash off, and she comes out a blur, or I leave it on, and she’s too shiny. She also has an awkward habit of wandering towards the camera lens as soon as she sees that it’s pointed towards her, and this can make things difficult. I think I need to follow her into the garden and photograph her there.
Enkidu, on the other hand, is continuing his love affair with the camera:
UPDATE: Success!
“The problem was undoubtedly compounded by my dramatic loss of hair in my late thirties.” — Mark Oaten, over here.
Margaret Cole, Fabian socialist and wife of G. D. H., with whom she wrote detective novels. Born 6 May 1893, died 7 May 1980. Some quotes over here, on an otherwise somewhat garbled page.
Monday 1 May: Morris Dancing in the streets of Oxford.
Thursday 4 May: Lib Dems become biggest group on Oxford City Council.
Saturday 6 May: Oxford United relegated from the football league.
Alfred Rosmer, French syndicalist and friend of Trotsky. The founding meeting of the Fourth International took place at his house. Born 1877; died 6 May 1964.
Ian Mikardo, Labour MP, born 9 July 1908, died 6 May 1993.
Irving Howe, founding editor of Dissent; born 1920, died 5 May 1993.
Full local election results in Oxford over here [pdf].
Children’s author and Fabian socialist Edith Nesbit (b. 15 August 1858, d. 4 May 1924) shares the honours today together with the father of socialist Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito (b. 7 May 1907, d. 4 May 1980). For reasons lost in the depths of time, I continue to give these two the same number in the dead socialist watch. And Tito still has the better webpage.
