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Articles by Simon Campion-Brown

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About Simon Campion-Brown

A former lecturer in politics at Keele University, Simon now lives in Oxfordshire. Married with two children, in 2007 he decided to monitor the Westminster village via newspaper and television and has never looked back. More Posts

“What’s Going On” (as Marvin Gaye would have sung)

I’m glad I’m not a politician – it’s got to be one of the most unenviable jobs known to man (or woman), notwithstanding the fact that there are (and will always be) those who are inexorably drawn to taking their chances at standing for public office and indeed becoming an MP – and then [...]

August 10, 2021 // 0 Comments

Watching my favourite team on the world stage

Despite my Scottish ancestry on both my parent’s sides – incidentally from an early age all my life I had also been told that I possessed a significant Italian family background, an allegation that was disproved last year when, as a birthday present, my daughter arranged me a DNA (ancestry) [...]

June 15, 2021 // 0 Comments

And another thing …

For someone as cynical as myself about the world of politics and “the Establishment” there is little more fascinating that a good old-fashioned newspaper expose of hypocrisy, double-dealing, “do as I say, not as I do”, “one law for the rich, another for everyone [...]

November 23, 2020 // 0 Comments

Six months and counting into it

Last weekend I joined an informal and thoroughly enjoyable Zoom meeting of half a dozen erstwhile contributors to the Rust – two of whom I have never met in the flesh – at which we just socialised, caught up with each other’s personal news and discussed the extent to which the Covid-19 crisis [...]

October 13, 2020 // 0 Comments

Hot weather and a mad world

For the mental health of citizens throughout the United Kingdom – and quite possibly also the world – on Monday I shall be setting up a petition calling upon the Government to introduce an emergency law immediately banning use of the word “unprecedented” in media reports [...]

August 8, 2020 // 0 Comments

Some home truths arising from the pandemic

I’ve been getting the impression since the coronavirus pandemic first hit the UK that humanity really needs to make its mind up between whether it would prefer to live free without restraints to “do its own thing” – albeit perhaps within some basic limits (e.g. as long as this doesn’t [...]

July 30, 2020 // 0 Comments

“Blistering barnacles!” (as Captain Haddock of Tintin fame would say)

Regular Rusters will be aware of my general antipathy towards the country of Scotland and its inhabitants and indeed my petition currently before Parliament demanding a national referendum to decide whether the country as a whole would like to eject Scotland from the United Kingdom. Let’s examine [...]

July 20, 2020 // 0 Comments

Nothing to write home about, as usual

For my sins, last night I watched Boris’ Speech to the Nation on BBC One at 7.00pm and the the Huw Edwards-anchored BBC News Special that followed. Long-suffering Rusters will be aware of my overwhelming cynicism towards politicians, which extends to the view that Boris is not Premier material [...]

May 11, 2020 // 0 Comments

Taking stock but always in vain

When the time comes to look back over the course of UK’s coronavirus crisis – and possibly the world’s too – one aspect that will need examining in depth is the general degree of public semi-madness, concern and anxiety generated by the endless amounts of rumour, speculation, fantasy, [...]

May 5, 2020 // 0 Comments

We are where we are

Last night at about 7.40pm by chance – not long before my standard bedtime – I joined the BBC1 broadcast of its long-running news & current affairs investigative programme Panorama (season 29, episode 17, entitled Has The Government Failed the NHS?) in which reporter Richard Bilton [...]

April 28, 2020 // 0 Comments

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