Some of you may have been wondering why I don’t appear to have been writing much for The Sharpener in the last few months. It’s because I’ve been working on a new project, and unlike so many of the other new projects that get mentioned here, this one doesn’t involve sitting at a desk typing. Instead, starting next Sunday, I’m going to be walking from John O’ Groats to Land’s End to raise money for the Brain Research Trust. Read More
I can’t be the only one to have noticed the vogue for quiz shows designed to reproduce, repackage and reinforce existing class relations for primetime TV. The latest incarnation is Poker Face:
Each show will see six new contestants face five rounds of questions. Throughout the game they will know exactly how many they have right and how much money they are accumulating… However they have no idea how well their fellow contestants are actually faring… At the end of each round one person must leave the game. Read More
Information wants to be free, but the Foreign Office doesn’t
FOI and Crown Copyright how-to
Riding Along On A Carousel
The ABC of VAT fraud
The political victimology of Zizou
Zidane, racism and the left
It’s the standard liberal position he takes and the reasoning behind it is one I largely accept. How can we expect a politician who betrays his wife to be faithful to his vocation as a minister and as an MP? Not sure exactly – we just can. Human beings compartmentalize and one area where they do this probably more than in any other is in their sex lives. Martin Luther King committed adultery; Hitler didn’t – does anyone need any more historical examples over these?
The story of the Bermingham Three has finally made it from the business news to the front pages of the papers. The alleged fraudsters have been fighting extradition for over two years but now that their last appeal has failed, they will be put on a plane for Houston on Thursday and will probably be held on remand in a US federal penitentiary for over a year before they come to trail.
The case is controversial because the former Nat West employees have been extradited under the 2003 Extradition Treaty which the UK incorporated into law but which the US Senate has not ratified. However, today’s Financial Times argues that they could have been extradited under the previous 1972 treaty and that, by neglecting to ratify the treaty, “the senate has provided a perfect smokescreen for three men who have a real case to answer.â€Â
The extradition of the Bermingham Three will send a shiver through the management teams in many British companies. Many UK companies are already subject to American legislation and regulation, even if they do very little business in the USA. America’s willingness to seek the extradition of foreign executives gives these regulations real teeth.
Read More