Political prisoner, activist, journalist, hymn-writer, emerging thinktanker, aspiring novelist, "tribal elder", 2019 parliamentary candidate for North West Durham, Shadow Leader of the Opposition, "Speedboat", "The Cockroach", eagerly awaiting the second (or possibly third) attempt to murder me.
Friday, 2 January 2009
Releasing Them All From Guantánamo Bay
Any suggestions are to where they might be put? We’ll start the bidding at Tony Blair’s numerous houses.
I never did understand his appeal in the South. He was in no sense a Southerner.
Brought up in Edinburgh and Durham, he gravitated to London after Oxford as people do, but by 30 (and married to a Liverpudlian) he was a County Durham MP.
His two elder sons even voted for the first time there at the last Election, leaving no doubt as to where the family home is felt to be.
So what made people in the South think that he was one of them?
Incidentally, use of the address myrobellahouse@hotmail.com always guaranteed a swift response, and might still.
As far as I know it is still his. When I was living near there right at the end of his time as PM it was still under guard each day.
You remind me of that story that Hexham are putting a southener up as Tory MP in the one seat they have up here, shunning the local conservative members. They should just stop being actively involved there must be a worthwhile candidate in there somewhere.
How has he paid for all these houses?
ReplyDeleteWe must never, ever ask...
ReplyDeleteHe probably has now he has made however many millions since leaving the post of PM.
ReplyDeleteThey could start with his house in Trimdon. I doubt he's been near that for years.
Oh, it hasn't been sold.
ReplyDeleteI never did understand his appeal in the South. He was in no sense a Southerner.
Brought up in Edinburgh and Durham, he gravitated to London after Oxford as people do, but by 30 (and married to a Liverpudlian) he was a County Durham MP.
His two elder sons even voted for the first time there at the last Election, leaving no doubt as to where the family home is felt to be.
So what made people in the South think that he was one of them?
Incidentally, use of the address myrobellahouse@hotmail.com always guaranteed a swift response, and might still.
As far as I know it is still his. When I was living near there right at the end of his time as PM it was still under guard each day.
ReplyDeleteYou remind me of that story that Hexham are putting a southener up as Tory MP in the one seat they have up here, shunning the local conservative members. They should just stop being actively involved there must be a worthwhile candidate in there somewhere.
The usual North/South snobbery.
Hexham is the only constituency never, ever to have elected anything other than a Tory MP.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I doubt that Peter Atkinson is any happier about this sort of thing than is his neighbour across the county boundary, Hilary Armstrong.
She is so unimpressed by the potential successors being lined up by the New Labour machine that she might very well not retire after all.
Will he?
There must be any number of cases of this sort of thing around the country. Has anyone any more?