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Update: this piece was featured on the Huffington Post UK, here. The police were on alert. Above hearts-and-minds grins, vigilant eyes followed a disparate procession as it streamed into the community hall on a still, pale evening in May. A week before, almost to the hour, a young soldier’s death had sickened a nation. But he had not bitten the dust of the Helmand desert. Lee Rigby fell on a far more ominous corner of the world, a hard grey London street, mowed down and hacked to death in broad daylight by two men wielding carving knives. Almost as soon as the news had hit,Read More →

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An article I wrote about Gordon Brown’s address to the MIPCOM conference in Cannes. Brown, who was speaking in his capacity as UN envoy for education, was joined on stage by the father of Malala Yousafzai, the girl shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan for refusing to stay away from school. He was there to launch the UN’s Global Education Initiative, a 1000-day drive to put every child in the world into school.      Read More →

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…in getting heavy with stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don’t bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I… And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there’s a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of themRead More →

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The grey skies over Britain were a fitting tribute to Maggie as she sucked a final helping of Britain’s resources down with her into the darkness. It was a gratuitous day that wrapped up a fortnight of a very modern, cynical type of grief. In reality her death changed nothing: the Lady was long gone, but it said so much more. About the world she has shuffled off, the grey she leaves behind. Those who still revere Thatcher choose only to look at what came before her, the rest of us see what has followed.Read More →

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I wrote this feature for Property Week based on a round-table discussion I attended during real estate conference MIPIM 2013. The event, chaired by Property Week editor Mike Phillips, featured some of Europe’s leading real estate experts to discuss a range of key topics affecting the market in 2013.Read More →

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David Cameron got a warm pat on the back from the French National Front last week for “breaking the taboo on immigration”. Trying to drag back drifters who have been lost by some osmosis to UKIP, he laid it on the line. No more scrounging, show the door to illegal immigrants, a rolling up of the “red carpet”. I wonder if most immigrants notice a red carpet rolled out for them when they arrive in this modern Britain? Where they are condemned and crudely labelled by right-wing politicians cashing in a growing nationalist sentiment.Read More →