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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

Fond memories revived

I was a huge fan of the satirical series Spitting Image, which celebrates its thirtieth anniversary with the opening of an exhibition Spitting Image From Start To Finish at London’s Cartoon Museum that will run until 8th June and BBC Arena documentary scheduled to be broadcast on BBC4 on 20th [...]

March 5, 2014 // 0 Comments

“Events, dear boy, events …”

This might be deemed an unacceptable reaction in polite or rational circles, but I’m rather enjoying Britain’s flooding crisis as it unfolds day by day. On a friend’s recommendation, last night I watched a ‘catch-up TV’ version of the first episode of Channel Four’s new comedy-drama [...]

February 11, 2014 // 0 Comments

Be careful what you wish for

I’m sure that in the right situation – perhaps a private dinner party with friends – Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman is a warm, funny, charismatic lady. However, in public, she increasingly comes across to this observer as an over-serious, prim, hectoring, one-track mind promoter of [...]

February 6, 2014 // 0 Comments

Meeting the people (only if you have to)

There are few more satisfying and enjoyable sights that watching politicians being discomforted by confrontations with ordinary members of the public, the very people that in a democracy – oh so inconveniently – they need votes from in order to reach and retain their positions of power and [...]

January 28, 2014 // 0 Comments

Clegg at play – sorry, ‘bay’

For my sins, I watched the whole of the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 yesterday morning, which included a featured a 15 minute-plus interview with Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Lib-Dems. Ostensibly, his purpose in agreeing to be interviewed – apart from having his vanity button [...]

January 13, 2014 // 0 Comments

Keeping a beady eye on Parliament

The great British public, indeed any democratic society, allegedly gets the government and political masters it deserves. That’s why it is vital that light and magnifying glasses should be trained constantly upon the workings and operation of those who control the legislative process. [...]

January 8, 2014 // 0 Comments

Blair exchanges with Bush may be made public

The media is reporting today that some of the conversations and/or exchanges between Tony Blair and US president George W. Bush prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 may now be made public. This development may have implications for the Chilcot Inquiry, whose report was due over two years ago but [...]

December 30, 2013 // 0 Comments

A trend to be concerned about

Britain’s main political parties are worried about what they perceive as progressive voter apathy. Fewer people are actually bothering to sign up as party members and the percentages voting – in both General and local elections – are declining. Various attempts to arrest the slide, such as [...]

December 29, 2013 // 0 Comments

When deafening silence of politicians speaks volumes

In the wake of yesterday’s publicity over the interim report of the independent Airports Commission, chaired by Sir Howard Davies, into the future of commercial aviation in the UK – contrary to some expectations, listing one Gatwick and two Heathrow schemes on a shortlist of three, with [...]

December 18, 2013 // 0 Comments

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