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| Columnists |
| Issue 1384 |
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| With Bio-Waste Spreader: "Working a proposed ‘day a week’ chairing the First Milk farmers’ co-operative for an annual salary of £125,000 must have felt like money for old rope to Sir Jim Paice, Tory MP for South East Cambridgeshire, when he took the job in October 2013. Given the co-operative’s announcement that it has severe ‘cash flow issues’ and has had to delay payments to farmers, he might now feel obliged to put in a few extra hours…” |
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| With M.D.: "David Cameron’s decision not to put the NHS in his top six election priorities - having placed it number one in the previous election – is either a political masterstroke or an act of gross ineptitude to rival the Health and Social Care Act itself. The masterstroke argument is that the NHS should be depoliticised. Former health secretary Andrew Lansley’s vision for his reforms was that he would become the serene secretary of state for public health, with day-to-day running of the service devolved to NHS England, clinical commissioning groups and foundation trusts. The health secretary would no longer be accountable or responsible for the shortcomings of the service, even in the countdown to an election. Lansley’s replacement, Jeremy Hunt, has rather scuppered this plan by being one of the most interfering health secretaries in history…” |
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With Remote Controller: "As this publication acknowledges in its long-running mock-apology feature, the media are adept at a one-two tactic, in which the sports star, politician or celebrity previously acclaimed as a divine talent is reclassified overnight as a demonic idiot, or sometimes vice versa. Indeed, the extremity of the first reaction is calculated to give more impact to the recantation. And so it has been with Broadchurch. Within a week of pieces warning readers not to become ill on Monday nights because all doctors and ambulance staff would be stuck on the sofa with the rest of the British public watching the return of the greatest TV crime drama of modern times, Chris Chibnall’s Dorset whodunnit has already ‘completely lost the plot’ while ‘viewers are disappearing in droves’…”
[Review of Broadchurch (ITV)] |
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| With Piloti: "Against the wishes of a majority of Londoners (as far as they can be ascertained), London is fast becoming a city of towers; a Dubai-on-Thames. Thanks to Boris Johnson and his predecessor as London mayor, Ken Livingstone, and also to Peter Rees (now mercifully removed from his post as planning officer to the City Corporation), many towers are already up – some unspeakable insults to every civilised value, like the so-called ‘Walkie-Talkie’ – and and some 240 are in the pipeline (estimates vary). They are not just to be in the City: many residential blocks will line the Thames while others are to be ‘clusters’ in places like Vauxhall and Elephant & Castle…” |
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| With Bookworm: " ‘Truly significant poets write like no one else, and David Harsent is both sui generis and unsurpassed.’ Thus Fiona Sampson reviewing Harsent’s collection Night in 2011. Last August she gave another ecstatic review to his new slim volume, Fire Songs. ‘With every book,’ she told Independent readers, ‘his stature as a truly significant writer becomes more undeniable.’ Such is Sampson’s admiration that, as one of the two judges for Canada’s Griffin prize in 2012, she ensured that he won its International Award, worth CAD$65,000 (£36,000). And last week she was one of three judges who awarded Harsent the Poetry Book Society’s TS Eliot prize…” |
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| With Slicker: "Has the corporate investigation bubble finally burst? Are the smart-suited (no trench coats) Sherlocks so popular with City banks and law firms losing their appeal? After years of relentless expansion, it seems hard times have suddenly hit the world of business intelligence, risk consultancy, due diligence, asset tracing and other people’s secrets. Last year two of the largest corporate private eyes recorded sharp falls in revenues and made losses. Other leading players in the PI business moaned of tough trading conditions to explain lower income and profits. Two established names went out of business altogether, while one new entrant had to seek a rescue takeover within months of setting up shop…”
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Letter from Abucha
From Our Own Correspondent: "Even in faraway Africa we heard the roar of outrage when 17 people were gunned down in Paris for drawing pictures or going to a particular supermarket. But here in Nigeria, alas, we have gone far beyond anger and solidarity to bleak despair or outright denial at our own fate. This is a country where hundreds of people die or are kidnapped every week, for no reason at all. Sometimes they are killed by children as young as 10. Sometimes they are randomly butchered, their throats slashed until they can bleed no more. Sometimes the victims are Christian, sometimes Muslim. It has become a conflict that seems to have no purpose other than to shed more blood…” |
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To read all these columnists and more in full, you can buy the latest edition of Private Eye - or subscribe here and have the magazine delivered to your home every fortnight.
Next issue on sale:
3rd February 2015. |
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Only In The Magazine
Saudi Flogging Row – ‘We’ll Flog Them Anything’ Vows Government… New From Gnome – The Pope Punch Bag… Chilcot Report Found on Mars… Nick Clegg Backs Plan to Reduce Career Suicides… Eye Rebranded as the ‘Coca-Cola Eye’… ‘Je Suis un Charlie’: Prince Charles Latest… Lady Antonia Fraser’s Diary, as told to Craig Brown
And also...
- Cartoon special: Eye cartoonists respond to world events, then and now.
- Censor sensibilities: From India to Ecuador, the crackdown on irreverence and dissent
- Palace coo! The Kensington properties owned by the Queen but leased offshore
For all these stories you can buy the magazine or subscribe here and get delivery direct to your home every fortnight.
Next issue on sale: 3rd February 2015. |
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