Tony Blair lived by the sword; but it was Gordon Brown who died by it.
I heard about Gordon Brown’s resignation on my way to a Russian-organised concert at the Albert Hall to mark the 65th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe.
Read more: Tony Blair lived by the sword; but it was Gordon Brown who died by it.
What Mr Cameron will do to education - if Mr Clegg lets him
Tory education spokesman Michael Gove is a class act. He is fluent, clever, humourous, and I enjoy our email banter enormously.
But Michael Gove as educations secretary will be poison to state schools.
So the Anti-Academies Alliance has today pleaded with Nick Clegg not to allow it to happen.
Read more: What Mr Cameron will do to education - if Mr Clegg lets him
The anti-academy vote in South Dorset
Academies haven’t been much in evidence during the election, because there’s a cosy consensus between Labour and Tories. Labour wants these privatised schools; the Conservatives want more of them.
But I’ve been talking to a parent with a definite view about who to vote for in her South Dorset constituency, if you’re against the extraordinarily Stalinist academy proposal on the Isle of Portland.
The real Gordon Brown just stood up
Gordon Brown is a strange man. Everyone says so. Blairites say it with rolling eyes, significantly tapping the sides of their elegantly coiffured heads. Brownites say it with the sort of admiration that often comes close to despair.
The despair comes from the strangest thing about him: that the charismatic radical he can be – the man I interviewed for my Brown biography early in 2007, a month before he became Prime Minister - is a man whom, most of the time, he feels he has to hide.
My friend Harry Conroy: not a fashion icon
There was a sad reason for my visit to Glasgow (see article below.) I was attending the funeral of my old friend and comrade Harry Conroy, former general secretary of the National Union of Journalists as well as a formidable journalist and author.
I was close to tears a lot of the day.