Richard Ingrams' Week: I don't see why I should pay the Speaker's legal bills
Published: 13 October 2007
It was reported in August that the Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin (nicknamed Gorbals Mick after his Glaswegian origins) had run up a bill of £3,000 with the notoriously bullish libel solicitors Carter Ruck.
Richard Ingrams' Week: An 'unscripted' speech is often nothing of the kind
Published: 06 October 2007
"It might be a bit messy. But it will be me." With this, rather sick-making apologia, David Cameron launched into a conference speech which so impressed the reporters that they forgot all their previous misgivings about Cameron and decided that he might after all be able to lead the Tories to victory in an election.
Richard Ingrams' Week: So is it time to consider the word 'old' offensive?
Published: 29 September 2007
When we are barred from making remarks about people's race, religion or sexual orientation, can it be long before a ban is put on other possible terms of abuse and denigration?
Richard Ingrams' Week: Dare we expect warts and all in Cherie's memoirs?
Published: 22 September 2007
Cherie Blair has little in common with Oliver Cromwell, the man who famously told the portrait painter Peter Lely to make sure all his warts and pimples were included in the picture. By contrast the art of the airbrusher has seldom been seen to such good effect as on the cover of Cherie Blair's projected book of memoirs.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Sorry, Boris, but bendy buses are here to stay
Published: 15 September 2007
I well remember Red Ken Livingstone announcing at an Oldie literary lunch that the first thing he would do, if elected as London's mayor, would be to bring back conductors on the buses. There was wild applause.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Sadly, Brown is making these fatuous tributes too
Published: 08 September 2007
On my occasional visits to my brother Leonard's Garsington Opera, I have noted the regular presence there of Tory politicians – Michael Howard, Douglas Hurd, Lord Heseltine, etc. It is rarely, if ever, that one spots a Labour face.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Barbarians in our midst – or are they vigilantes?
Published: 01 September 2007
The people of Liverpool seem to have something in common with the people of Belfast, ie they have little or no confidence in the police. This is said to be the reason why in Liverpool witnesses are reluctant to come forward to tell what they know about the shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Too many people are far too free with their cash
Published: 18 August 2007
Any one struggling to understand a financial crisis of the type we are now faced with will be simultaneously baffled by complex matters and amazed by very simple ones.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Why does the taxpayer have to foot the libel bill?
Published: 11 August 2007
The speaker of the House of Commons Mike Martin is not a very popular figure. Nicknamed Gorbals Mick after his Glaswegian origins Martin is regularly mocked by the parliamentary hacks for his uncouth Scottish demeanour and cack-handed interventions in the House.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Harsh reality of attack on a fellow film-maker
Published: 04 August 2007
Documentary film-maker Paul Watson has taken a lot of stick following the showing to critics of his film about the last days of an Alzheimer's victim Malcolm Pointon. Advance publicity had suggested that the film would show the actual moment of Pointon's death but it transpired that he had in fact died two days after the filming stopped. Does it matter a great deal?
Richard Ingrams' Week: The judge who is deciding what we can see on TV
Published: 28 July 2007
"Some viewers may find the following scenes disturbing." Whenever I hear that particular warning I automatically think, "Then why are you showing them?" The answer of course is that they will spice up what might otherwise be a rather dull news report.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Hated, despised ... and a brilliant companion
Published: 14 July 2007
We journalists are an insecure bunch. Hated and despised by the public, many of us long to be loved. The emotional conflict can sometimes be fatal.
Richard Ingrams' Week: In a tight corner, always shoot the messenger
Published: 07 July 2007
Angela Mason, a 60-year-old supply teacher, did us all a service when, with the help of veteran documentary-maker Roger Graef, she secretly filmed scenes of wild disorder in a number of state schools. The film called Classroom Chaos was shown on Five in 2005. It included one scene in which Mason's classroom was vandalised during break with glass thrown around and desks overturned.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Restore trust? It was never there to begin with
Published: 30 June 2007
The new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, was reported to have been in tears when Mr Blair gave his farewell performance in the House of Commons on Wednesday. The Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, was also blubbing, according to the newspapers, while MPs of all parties were apparently overcome by emotion and gave Mr Blair a standing ovation - something unheard of.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Why is no one willing to fight the smoking ban?
Published: 23 June 2007
Having given up smoking more than 30 years ago I feel quite tempted to take it up again, if only as a protest against the draconian measures currently being introduced to stop people from smoking almost anywhere.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Whatever happened to that biography of Tina Brown?
Published: 16 June 2007
Evelyn Waugh once wrote a satirical guide for young men and women who wanted to pursue a literary career. The way to succeed as a biographer, he said, was to choose somebody very famous who had had six books written about them quite recently.
Richard Ingrams' Week: A lone voice of sanity amid howls of outrage
Published: 09 June 2007
Outrage, fury and anguish were, according to the Daily Mail, the response to reports this week that following talks with Colonel Gaddafi Tony Blair might have agreed to return the so-called Lockerbie bomber to his native Libya. The anguish was being evinced by relatives of those who died in December 1988 when Pan-Am flight 103 blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 270 people on board. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was convicted in 2000 and given a life sentence.
Richard Ingrams' Week: The fine art of never admitting mistakes
Published: 26 May 2007
We are accustomed by now to a set routine when anything goes badly wrong in this country. First of all, some kind of official inquiry is set in motion to discover what went wrong. This will take some months before any conclusions are reached.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Blair can turn Catholic, but will he truly confess?
Published: 19 May 2007
Reports that Tony Blair is about to become a Roman Catholic have resurfaced since he announced his retirement. That distinguished and well-informed pundit Mr Anthony Howard has pronounced to that effect and top people's priest Fr Michael Seed of Westminster Cathedral has appeared to confirm the story.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Careless wars cost lives, not public-spirited actions
Published: 12 May 2007
Many years ago when the Ministry of Defence was trying to persuade me that Private Eye should agree to accept the Government's D notices - those pieces of information given to the press on condition that they don't print them - I was told by the MoD official concerned that if I refused I could be "putting British soldiers' lives at risk".
Richard Ingrams' Week: Another accidental death, another bereaved parent
Published: 05 May 2007
The Independent Police Complaints Commission, it was reported yesterday, is to examine the police's investigation into the death of Stuart Lubbock, whose body was found in Michael Barrymore's swimming pool in March 2001.
Richard Ingrams' Week: No issue is too trivial for the new-look 'Panorama'
Published: 28 April 2007
There has been a further revelation of a TV quiz show working a racket with the viewers' money. The only surprise in this instance was that the scam should have been exposed on the BBC's so-called flagship current affairs programme, Panorama.
Richard Ingrams' Week: Another nail in the coffin of the Post Office
Published: 21 April 2007
Trades unions and organisations such as Age Concern are up in arms about the proposal to locate 70 so-called Crown Post Offices in WH Smith shops. One union spokesman said: "WH Smith has no history of providing the sort of service the Post Office provides."
Richard Ingrams' Week: So how much faith can we have in these people?
Published: 14 April 2007
More and more people have been acting in good faith. Mr Blair, who always does so, assures everybody that the Royal Navy acted in good faith when it allowed those hostages to talk to the media. So that's all right then.
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