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Q Conversations 5: Politician Elizabeth, Baroness Berridge

Q Conversations 5: Politician Elizabeth, Baroness Berridge

Elizabeth Berridge, until very recently, was the youngest woman in the House of Lords, the UK’s upper house in Parliament. Raised to the peerage in the 2011, she was before that a barrister and then in 2006 became Executive Director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship which exists to bring together Conservative Party voting Christians of all denominations. She describes herself as a classic Tory ‘wet’, as opposed to the ‘Dry’ Thatcherite end of the party’s spectrum. If that terminology is rather meaningless to you (oreven sounds mildly offensive!) then listen in! (more…)

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Q Conversations 4: Jazz Singer and Photographer Ruth Naomi Floyd

Q Conversations 4: Jazz Singer and Photographer Ruth Naomi Floyd

While I was in the States at the end of last month, I had an afternoon to kill in Philadelphia. So the completely obvious thing to do was record another Q conversation. This time I sat down to chat with Ruth Naomi Floyd, whom I’d met at the European Leadership Conference in Hungary a few years ago. It’s available on iTunes podcasts, or if you prefer a direct feed, here on Jellycast.

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The British Empire was never quite what you thought: John Darwin’s Unfinished Empire

The British Empire was never quite what you thought: John Darwin’s Unfinished Empire

Nearly 10 years ago, a dear friend of mine was addressing a gathering of Ugandan MPs in the Parliament building in Kampala (around the 40th anniversary of independence). It included those from all shades on the political spectrum, including not a few post-colonial firebrands. My friend is certainly no great apologist for imperialism, but he posed two simple questions.

  • “Which Ugandan regions (of those that the British failed to develop) have we since developed?”
  • “What aspects of public life, government and rule of law have we improved on or done better in than the colonial regime?”

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To pund or not to pund? The baits and traps of tweology

To pund or not to pund? The baits and traps of tweology

It is a great sadness to me that the word ‘pund’ does not exist. This is no doubt because the English ‘pundit’ is actually a corruption of an ancient Sanskrit work ‘pandit’ which meant ‘learned scholar, master, teacher’ (don’t worry – I didn’t know that until I looked it up in the OED). But I recommend using it – because I’ve noticed that there is an increasing amount of punding going on. And I’m not sure the sight is all that pretty. (more…)

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