Every nation needs leadership. Leadership is not about charisma or personality. In my mind, true leadership needs these seven qualities – Vision, passion, clarity, judgement, courage, integrity and humility. How did the main characters in the EU referendum pantomime measure up to these seven? This is how I scored them. Cameron 3, Corbyn 3, Farage…
Let’s just call them people. Not a swarm of people, not migrants, not even refugees. As soon as we label people we objectify them. And if we label a group of people, we make them all the same. At least the word people allows for men and women and children, from different countries, each with…
And so, I was about to finally step into Russia. As a kid, of course, it was all part of the USSR. We lived as children in genuine fear of the Cold War between the Soviets and the Americans escalating into Mutually Assured Destruction, wondering what we would do if the apocryphal 4-minute warning sounded…
And so the shouting and voting is over. The fat lady has sung. The Conservatives have been rewarded for with an overall majority, whilst their Lib-Dem partners for the last five years have been severely punished. The SNP has conquered Scotland. UKIP got 4 million votes but only one seat. Labour lost Scotland and made…
We have all been given a vote which we can use today. Everyone has one, single vote – irrespective of age, income, height, wisdom, IQ or dress-sense. Nobody has a casting vote, a special vote, the power of veto. Every vote is absolutely identical. We cannot buy more votes, nor can we give our vote…
Originally posted on Unwrapping The World:
My thoughts on the trip Hannah and I made to Auschwitz and Birkenau in 2009. We arrived by bus from Krakow. It was a bright sunny day – one felt it would have been more appropriate to arrive in the cold and snow. We walked into the the museum,…
And so the sordid Ched Evans debacle is finally resolved. Since his despicable rape of a woman in 2011, the whole sorry saga has lurched from one scandal to another. Until we have Steve Bruce questioning the veracity of a rape conviction and Gordon Taylor commenting on miscarriages of justice with insensitive comparisons to the…
What is art? And what does it do for you? and to you? As we walked through the arty end of Glasgow, along something of a back street, we passed the window of an art studio. We peered inside. We saw a surprisingly large white room containing large bright coloured red cubes arranged across the…
Passing through Schipol airport four days after MH17 was blown out of the skies over Ukraine, was always going to be poignant. I am sat on the KLM Cityhopper from Amsterdam to Oslo. I have no thoughts or fears of being attacked. But then, nor did the 298 living and breathing people who left from…
1. Fear of Failure. We sparkled against Italy with a liberty and fearlessness unknown in England teams. No worries – Gerrard and Lampard’s little speech to the team after that game reminded them how dreadful it would be to go out of the world cup at the group stages. Traditional fear of failure was restored.…
Unwrapping The World 