There was an interesting item on the Today programme this morning, which was guest edited by Sir Clive Woodward, about boxing and the Olympics (scroll down for the listen again feature to 8.50 am). It has been suggested that investing in boxing, including encouraging boxing in schools, would be a good way to increase possible medal successes at the 2012 Olympics. The obvious role models are Audley Harrison and, in particular, Amir Khan, after his startling success at the age of 17 in Athens, and whose charismatic and complex personality has an obvious appeal, particularly in multi-cultural UK.

Read More

Intriguing future scenarios for Scotland. Looking good or looking bad?

In the tradition of the New Shorter Sharpener – snappy posts for a busy world – here is everything I want to say about the issue of labour mobility from Bulgaria and Romania in one equation.

Illiberal Home Secretary Pandering to Rabid Anti-Immigration Tabloid Gallery and Demonstrating Penchant to create New Criminal Offences + Romanian and Bulgarian Citizens who will be EU Citizens with formal right of entry and residence to the UK as of 1 January 2007 = Massive Increase in Black Economy + More People Sleeping Rough + Reduction in the Tax Take from Migrant Workforce for UK Treasury + Lots of People Thinking That It Is All The Fault of the Romanians and Bulgarians after all.

 

Sharpener readers with good memories may recollect that there is a certain common theme to my posts. They all have something to do with citizenship and passports (in a rather formal sense). This one is no different. It’s about David Hicks, the Australian detainee in Guantanamo Bay, who discovered belatedly that he was entitled to UK Citizenship by descent (via his mother). Read More

Another case of foreign-prisoner-deportation overkill. This time the case of Sakchai Makao in the Shetland Isles.

Self indulgent Sharpener contributor linkage. What are the real reasons why the University VCs won’t divvy up more money for academic salaries?

David Goodhart on “progressive nationalism”: the acceptable face of the “nasty” tendency amongst new Labour’s home secretaries?

Not my phrase, but one borrowed from Brian Taylor, political editor of the BBC in Scotland and author of books such as The Road to the Scottish Parliament. He was giving a lecture on Scotland and the EU at Edinburgh Law School, and in that context identified three weak points of devolution: the soft underbelly. Relations with the European Union; England; and money.
 

I’ll deal with each briefly in turn.

Read More

A wry look at Anglo-Scottish narrow-mindedness, reminding us why it is unhelpful both for the Scots to support “anyone but England” and for English comment-writers to attack Westminster MPs just for being Scottish.

Are Scottish voters second class citizens? Holyrood Chronicles takes issue with the BBC poll saying a Scottish MP cannot be “our dear leader”.