Lawks alive! The Express Diary reports today that my old colleague Andrew Mitchell unwittingly scuppered Boris Johnson entering the Shadow Cabinet. Apparently David Cameron wanted to promote Mitchell to become Work & Pensions Secretary but he insisted on staying with the International Development brief, which he had become rather attached to. DC had wanted Boris to travel the world bringing joy to the third world, but apparently drew the line at entrusting him with pensions reforms. Wise man. I'm not sure what Philip Hammond (the current Work & Pensions spokesman) will make of this, or indeed Boris, who now spends his time schmoozing with university students. But Andrew Mitchell has a lot to answer for!
7 comments:
I can't vouch for Boris' appeal to university students, but his appearance on the C4 Political Awards earlier this week led my 11 year old to ask "So is that one a real person then?" I wasn't able to establish what else she thought he might be.
On another note, I tried to post a comment on the "Clash of cultures" thred yesterday afternoon (about 3?). I got the usual message saying it was saved pending moderation. I don't think it was sufficiently incendiary (forgive pun) to be vetoed, but please correct me if I'm wrong and I will try harder.... Alternatively, in view of the other tech gremlin yesterday, has anyone else had trouble posting?
I'm sure Boris will be very happy with the university students and vice versa. Even those who should know better seem to be awfully fond of him; one of my offspring even joined his fan club at Durham. There was a move to make him Chancellor of that fine seat of learning to replace Peter Ustinov but fortunately good sense prevailed and they chose Bill Bryson, an American with generally much sounder views on most topics.
Btw your site still disappears if my cursor wanders across it and your sidebar often vanishes to the bottom of the page (as did mine until I republished the whole thing).
Btw (2) I saw you on the tele last night but they didn't give you much time to talk. You did well especially wrt Ming but you don't look like you do on the wireless.
Barbara, I'm sorry if I rejected your post. I can assure you it was an error, as I very rarely censor anything.
I really don't know why the site disappears if you wander your cursor over the comments box. I can't get it to do it. I wonder if it is in a particualr type of broswer. Anyone who has this problem, perhaps they can tell what browser they use.
Hughes Views, I'm not sure what I look like on radio!
Iain
Given that my post of this morning got through, the most likely explanation is probably user error (by me).
The mouse over/whiteout problem is still happening this morning but apparently less often. I'm using Internet Explorer on Windows XP.
Thanks and keep up the good work - the site is informative and entertaining.
IE 6.00.2800
Windows XP
Your site works fine on my work pc through Internet Explorer and 17" monitor, but doesn't fit properly (side menu goes to bottom of page), and is prone to disappearing, when I view it at home through AOL's browser and on a 15" screen.
Unlike Durham, it would appear that the campaign to install Boris as Rector of Edinburgh University is now unstoppable. My offspring will certainly be voting for him...Where did I go wrong? Luckily I have a vote myself as well, so we can cancel each other out, but in general students are hugely more numerous than staff and they seem to be favouring Boris, and the rest of the votes are likely to split between a range of other candidates.
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