Why lefty types should support privatised roads
Here’s a thought that has always tickled the Head of State in the car-free People’s Republic. I was reminded of it this morning by an exchange of Twitter fire between James Graham and Guido Fawkes. guidofawkes: 15 minute journey takes hour. Not like this in Wexford. jamesgraham: A truly free market road system would charge a fortune at peak. Presume would agree and want to scrap Stalinist ‘planning’?

The review you really don’t need…
…because you already watch The Thick Of It, you political dawg you. But reviews of TV shows that have already been seen by everyone who could conceivably be reading must work, or how would we account for the continuing success of the great Charlie Brooker? So, three episodes in, we in the People’s Republic are developing a cautious optimism about the series, after a frankly shaky start. I think my criticism of eps 1 and 2 comes down to this: the previous series (plural of series, anyone? Serieses? Series’? DonR

People’s Republican Beef Stew
For some reason I’ve only just noticed Sara Bedford’s autumnal stew recipe from, appropriately, the first of the month. It is bubbling away as I write and smelling fabulous, so I thought, while we all wait for the The Thick Of It to start (heavens! I haven’t been this excited since Wednesday when the next DVD in the third series of the West Wing arrived from Lovefilm), let’s get a stew meme going. Stew is perfect post-canvassing/local party social food because it keeps itself warm and can be stretched to accommodate unexpected numbers. If only it began with the same letter as “

The lure of the crank
During his appearance on Question Time on Thursday, Nick Griffin revealed that he has, in fact, read some books. These books, we are to believe, support his notion of there being a 17,000-year old “indigenous English race” surviving in the modern population of the British Isles. Actually, I shouldn’t say “we are to believe” because I can all too readily believe that books like that have been written. And I am therefore, obviously, reminded of the pyramids. Graham Hancock is a writer, self-trained historian and archaeologist who writes hugely successful books called things like

Trafigura: timeline of an outrage
The Trafigura business should make us feel good today. A not inconsiderable blow was struck for free speech, and it couldn’t have happened without the internet, or more precisely without social media networking. That much is fairly indisputable. But – and I hate to sound like I’m throwing a bucket of cold water all over your twittery love -  what exactly was the alchemy that transformed a Twitter trending topic into an admission of defeat by one of the world’s ghastliest legal enterprises