Giving voice to the whistleblower: Le Carré on cracking form in A Delicate Truth

There’s a key moment when the oleaginous Foreign Office chameleon, Giles Oakley, goads his protegé and A Delicate Truth‘s protagonist, Toby Bell, about what he should do with his qualms about government policy in the run up to Iraq War.

You’re exactly what the Guardian needs: another lost voice bleating in the wilderness. If you don’t agree with government policy, don’t hang around trying to change it. Jump ship. Write the great novel you’re always dreaming about. (p51)

The British Empire was never quite what you thought: John Darwin’s Unfinished Empire

Nearly 10 years ago, a dear friend of mine was addressing a gathering of Ugandan MPs in the Parliament building in Kampala (around the 40th anniversary of independence). It included those from all shades on the political spectrum, including not a few post-colonial firebrands. My friend is certainly no great apologist for imperialism, but he posed two simple questions.

• “Which Ugandan regions (of those that the British failed to develop) have we since developed?”
• “What aspects of public life, government and rule of law have we improved on or done better in than the colonial regime?”

Friday Fun 33: Christmas Moments on Instagram

So it seems our very human rights and liberties are being threatened by Instagram’s change of terms. Or they’re not. Or not in quite the same way. Well who knows?

Just in case they do decide to pilfer my works of art for their own heinous ends, I thought I’d display some of my chefs d’oeuvre from around London in recent weeks to put us all into a bit of a Christmas spirit.

Enjoy… while the world still exists…

Friday Fun 28: Aural Nostalgia for an African Day

This is a random Friday Fun. It’s not especially funny, although some will probably think this makes me seem very funny, putting me in the same bracket as collectors of birdsong CDs. Too bad. It just so happened that I was searching for some old files on my computer and came across these – I’d completely forgotten I’d made them. But in the few days before we left Uganda in the summer of 2005, I took my rudimentary digital recorder out into the garden and just let it listen.

Friday Fun 25: Urban Guerrillas Alive & Kicking on the London Underground

Thanks to my indefatigable colleague, Charmaine, who noticed this on The Poke, this week’s Friday Fun is brought to you courtesy of the London Underground. I suspect all Londoners have a love/hate relationship with the Underground e.g. I LOVE the Jubilee line and the DLR, but I HATE the Northern and Circle lines (that sort of thing). But the truth is that we would be sunk without it. It’s great that we can joke about it, though. So this webpage is collecting various attempts to lighten the mood. I just hope I get to see someone in real life soon.

The view from Olympian gods

What an extraordinary night. I’ve never been to an athletics event before in my life (not since defying the odds and coming second in the U13 100m at my prep school – nb there were only 3 other runners and only about 4 others in the qualifying age group in the whole school). But this was one not to miss – a night at the Olympics. Our seats were very high up ‘in the gods’ – but what a perspective, what a joy, what a privilege to witness.

Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Memento Mori: Matthew Parris, The House of Commons and the 1994 Death of John Smith

John Smith MP was one of those tragic political should-have-beens. But while Leader of the Opposition riding on Labour’s 23% point lead over the Tories in 1994 and widely assumed to be Prime Minister in waiting, he died 18 years ago tomorrow from a pair of massive heart attacks. He was only 55. For those concerned with public life, it was one of those remember-what-you-were-doing-moments. But the reason for picking up on it here is that I was blown away at the time, and recalled in conversation last week, the piece written by the great Matthew Parris, at the time The Times’ Parliamentary Sketch-writer and oft-quoted by Q.

An unimpressive herald of an unimpressive message: a final message under Parliament

Last week saw the final instalment of the little 1 Cor 1 series in the undercroft chapel in Westminster. Unfortunately, we had the slight inconvenience of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement happening on the same day, and as this had been brought forward to 12.30, there were few who were able to come. No worries though. We happy few had a happy time.

And how nice it was to have a Christmas tree in the centre of Westminster Hall. No thought of winterval here… yet. But give it time I suppose. Now, was it my imagination or does this tree look as though it is leaning to the right…? I’m sure that can’t be significant, can it?

An unimpressive people for an unimpressive king: another message under Parliament

Back in Parliament yesterday, and I unexpectedly arrived a little early – so found myself waiting for around 15 minutes in Westminster Hall. It was idyllic – the sun streaming through the great south windows. Perfect for reflections on the extraordinary events that occurred on this very spot: from monarchs and statesmen lying in state (the most recent, of course, being the Queen Mother), to grand inquisitions and historic orations (such as Mandela in 1996, the extraordinary moment of seeing a Pope address both Houses in 2010, and then Obama this year, the first US President to address both Houses from the Hall).

Spinning an unspinnable message – why bother? A message under Parliament

One or two have asked for this, so here it is: the first of 3 talks given in the gaudy riot of Pugin-inspired colour that is Parliament’s Undercroft Chapel. This is a group that meets mostly weekly under Christians in Parliament. The next two are on 15th and 29th November. We’d decided to do 3 sessions from the opening chapters of Paul’s extraordinary and thoroughly contemporary first letter to the Corinthian church.

“Whatever…” – a mission statement or a social condition?

It’s not every day that one gets to sit around the same table as representatives of Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Christian and Humanist networks with the chance to pick brains and question of the most senior leaders of the BBC. But that is exactly what happened today, as I’d been invited to attend a small group that meets twice a year on Religion and Belief in broadcasting. I certainly felt both out of my depth and a fish out of water (if that’s possible) – still, it was very interesting indeed (not least because the BBC is our next door neighbour) and a privilege to be present.

Q’s Espionage Festival: 3. Soviet Spies, John Stott and fleeting encounters

This is a mildly unserious combination of Q’s Espionage festival and Friday Fun. But London W1 is a spy-historian’s paradise – there are so many spots around here that saw Cold War duty (and the KGB certainly knew their way around). For a start, the formal gardens of Regent’s Park were regular rendezvous points for Cambridge Spies Kim Philby and Donald Maclean with their KGB handlers. But there’s another couple of connections that are even closer to home.

So did Sherlock Holmes (HonFRSC) REALLY live round here?

Sherlock Holmes is always with us. Every time I walk down Baker St (which is often because we live just behind it), the point is driven home. We love Benedict Cumberbatch’s contemporary take on Sherlock, but that’s not what I’m getting at. For a bit further up the street from us, there is in fact a “Sherlock Holmes Hotel”, believe it or not. But let’s be clear about this. There is no famous London Blue Plaque at 221B, because, of course, he DIDN’T exist.

“Our Flag is a union of Black and Blue” – Daljit Nagra’s Black History

Any walk along the Thames Embankment or the South Bank is bound to conjure up memories and evocations. This ancient river is observed/guarded/ignored by countless buildings created at different moments in British history: the proceeds of empire and the fates of peoples are all reflected in their facades. I came across this wonderful poem by Daljit Nagra in the last New Yorker of July. And it captures it all perfectly, far more articulately than we non-poetically-gifted mortals could manage.

Friday Fun 9: Humbert Wolfe’s The British Journalist – #Hackgate The Poem

In the light of recent events, it seems only appropriate to bring this back to the forefront of public attention. You’ve seen the trailer for Hackgate The Movie – now read Hackgate The Poem. Written by Humbert Wolfe in the 1920s, it shows that little has changed over the last century or so…

Friday Fun 7: PS What Whitehall Thinks of Canterbury

I said last week that I was offering the final instalment of Whitehall Wisdom. Well, I subsequently realised that I had omitted perhaps the most pertinent of the lot – the tangled web that has been weaved in the name of Church and State relations. This is primarily the result of that perfect CofE primer, the episode entitled The Bishop’s Gambit.

Friday Fun 7: Final Lessons from Whitehall

We come at last to the final instalment of Whitehall Wisdom. It’s more a random string of pearls than a topical arrangement this time, but still worth its weight in gold.

5 minutes in London’s west end: who says we’re not religious?

On Thursday lunchtime, I was speaking at a little gathering near Tottenham Court Rd – and was struck by the in-your-faceness of billboards for Derren Brown’s show, heralding “the wonders of the occult”. So I just got my phone out and started snapping. In the few minutes it took to walk to the tube, I encountered several evidences of the city’s multi-hued spirituality.

Friday Fun 6: Interpreting Civil Service Speak

One of the acute difficulties of British etiquette is the profound problem of meaning – there can be a huge disparity between the literal/surface meaning of words and the actual intended meaning as all visitors to these shores find to their confusion and even peril. For those wanting a general introduction to the phenomenon, you can do a lot worse than checking this excellent EU translation guide.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 31 (April 2011)

Sacred Treasure

• Martin Bashir is interviewed about his interview of Rob Bell. I was particularly struck by his perception of what C S Lewis called chronological snobbery in contemporary theological debates – whereby those over a certain age (ie 30!) are dismissed out of hand.
• Ian Paul has offered a really helpful response to the BBC1 series Bible’s Buried Secrets
• A wonderful example of doing good to all – let’s hope it works in all senses… Christopher Hitchens and Francis Collins.
• And while we’re thinking about him, here’s a nice if brief interview with Francis Collins – quite old now (originally from 2007), but I’ve only just seen it.
• At the other end of of the spectrum, here is a list of the 25 most influential atheists (though quite how you measure influence is anyone’s guess)
• In case you missed it, here is the extraordinary testimony of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s assassinated government minister: