Police state update

Brilliant diary story by Matthew Bell in today’s Independent on Sunday:

Residents of Hampstead are up in arms after a commemorative frieze of George Orwell’s face was stolen from a wall marking the location of Booklover’s Corner, the second-hand shop where he worked in the 1930s.

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 17 October 2010 at 12:42 pm

Health Diary: Envy

Stay in any hospital for long enough and I guarantee you’ll soon be competing for respect from fellow patients; like Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole fighting for attention from Simon Cowell.

By Chris Geiger | Notebook | Sunday, 17 October 2010 at 11:21 am

UFC 120: Bisping saves Brits’ blushes as Hardy and Hathaway are handed defeats

An Octagonside report from UFC 120 at London’s O2 Arena.

By Adam Williamson | Sport | Sunday, 17 October 2010 at 11:15 am

A helping hand? Sportsmanship and cheating

Whether one plays to win or plays to simply play doesn’t bother me one whit. If you can’t win in sport, you lose. I don’t want India to win in cricket, Reading or East Bengal clubs in football, or Roger Federer in tennis at any cost; I want them to win at all costs. The pursuit of winning a game, unadulterated by petty diversions, is the very essence of sport.

By Dr Debanjan Chakrabarti | Arts, Battle of Ideas, Eagle Eye | Sunday, 17 October 2010 at 12:01 am

Tories come out of conference season ahead

The ComRes poll for tomorrow’s Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror dashes Labour’s pre-conference hopes of going into the lead:

Con 40% (+1)

Lab 34% (-2)

LibDem 14% (-1)

Others 12% (+2)

(Comparison is with last ComRes poll for The Independent published 2 October.)

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 16 October 2010 at 7:30 pm

A target size for the banking sector?

Nick Crafts, Professor of Economic History at Warwick (right), is another of my heroes, and he also has an article in this month’s Parliamentary Brief. Here is the bit that caught my eye:

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 16 October 2010 at 5:23 pm

Heel-dragging

Guy Keleny, one of my favourite columnists, has an excellent item in today’s Errors & Omissions in The Independent about a misconceived turn of phrase I had not noticed before:

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 16 October 2010 at 3:49 pm

Why the Tories didn’t win

I am a great admirer of Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Sussex, whose The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron is a model of contemporary history. He has a short article in Parliamentary Brief this month, which has the best three-paragraph encapsulation of what happened at the 2010 election I have read:

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 16 October 2010 at 1:17 pm

Poll alert

We have a ComRes poll in The Independent on Sunday tomorrow (shared with the Sunday Mirror), which offers a snapshot of the state of public opinion after the party conference season and before the Comprehensive Spending Review.

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 16 October 2010 at 11:15 am

History Test

Compare and contrast, paying particular attention to the ways in which the authors express support of and opposition to the proposition.

Keith Richards, interviewed by Caitlin Moran in The Times (pay wall) (via Iain Martin):

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 16 October 2010 at 10:13 am