Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

A treat for the Russophiles and travel enthusiasts amongst you, as well as the Russophile travel enthusiasts of course. Down and Out in Lenzie and Lossiemouth has ferreted out a video diary recording Marcel Theroux’s adventures on the Trans Siberian Railway, carried by the Guardian’s website. In common with Hernandez, I nurse ambitions to cross the breadth of Russia by railway, travelling to Mongolia or Russian Far East. The costly packages which agencies offer can be avoided by booking only the train tickets , independently and roughing it (a little) in second class. Theroux’s first diary evokes some great memories of the train travel which I have experienced in Russia and Ukraine. Moving between carriages over clanking pieces of metal with yawning gaps which reveal fresh air and speeding tracks is rather invigorating. Although the restaurant cars I visited looked substantially better than the equivalent here. The second diary becomes rather aspirational. If you’ve got upwa...

Totnes' open primary deserves a mention, given the democracy versus diversity conundrum which some commentators suggested such a contest would produce. In an article on the Guardian politics website Andrew Sparrow quoted research implying that women would not flourish when this type of selection was used. One swallow (or perhaps that should be sparrow) does not a summer make, but the Conservatives first employment of an open postal ballot contradicts the thesis. Sarah Wollaston, a local doctor, won 7,914 votes, beating Sara Randall Johnson into second position. 25% of qualified voters participated. Iain Dale points out that the costs of the system are prohibitive (the Tories sent out postal ballots to each eligible voter), but there is room to retain the participative element whilst limiting expenditure. This experiment appears to have got off to a successful start.

Over the past week I’ve permitted myself the liberty of falling out ‘of the loop’. You’ll forgive me a slow start and, no doubt, some posts on well trodden territory, as I reacclimatise. Commenter Gary kindly brought to my attention this report , from the Irish Times, which details a meeting of the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Britain and Ireland”. I’m presuming that this body is some manner of NGO / academic exercise, because I must confess that I’ve not heard of it before. Certainly the synopses of submissions from the IT report are far from impressive. Vijay Mehta, from the ’International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy’ believes nationalists are fostering an increasing sense of dissatisfaction with the ’status quo’. Apparently “to the nationalist punter in the street, Irish unity has not come closer since the Good Friday agreement was signed in 1998”. The implication is that dissident violence is the inevitable result. We can extrapolate from thi...

If I'm honest July has been rather patchy in terms of traffic in any case, so it's an appropriate time to take a break. I'm off to France, Brittany to be exact, and I'd be very surprised if I find the time to post anything. Comment moderation will shortly be operating, purely because of the enormous quantities of bile and rubbish which have surfaced over the past couple of months.

This is a piece which I wrote for another source prior to the twelfth. It wasn't used, so I reproduce it here. Ostensibly David Cameron should be reassured by the pageantry scheduled to take place in Northern Ireland over the forthcoming holiday weekend. By striking a deal with Ulster Unionists the Conservative leader has asked people here to express their Britishness through participation in national politics. With the province’s popular public holiday consisting of demonstrations which affirm the Union and celebrate foundational constitutional events in the UK’s history, Cameron’s appeal should find, ready made, a large and receptive constituency. But despite the fact that our place within the United Kingdom is now settled, and despite the fact that an incoming Tory government will strive to normalise our position further, Northern Ireland retains a contradictory attitude to national British politics. Since Gladstone introduced the first Home Rule bill in the 1880s, Irish uni...

Nick Robinson has had to row back from his initial implication that the Conservatives were struggling to victory in the Norwich by election. The BBC’s political correspondent speculated that the Tories would fall far short of the 17% swing which saw them win in Crewe and Nantwich and insinuated that even an election winning target of 6.9% might be beyond the party. The final result actually brought a 16.5% move towards the Conservative candidate, Chloe Smith. She took the seat with a comfortable 7,348 majority. David Cameron and his team will be delighted with the outcome, which comes at a time when some commentators have suggested that the Tories have lost momentum. Labour’s collapse might well partly be ascribed to the unpopular deselection of sitting MP, Ian Gibson, but even so, its share of the vote disintegrated dramatically, from forty four to eighteen per cent. This is yet another indication that Gordon Brown’s government is irreparably damaged in the eyes of voters. And...

You can tell the ‘silly season’ is almost upon us, because the Scotsman is reporting fascinating news that some kerb stones in Larkhall were painted red, white and blue. The paper informs us that this horror was perpetrated by a ‘sectarian girl gang’. Now I have no doubt that their actions comprise a wanton piece of vandalism and all the details in the piece suggest that some underlying sectarianism might motivate the youths in question, but the paper simply hasn’t mentioned circumstances that justify using the word in the article. We are told that this “is the latest example of sectarian behaviour in the Lanarkshire town known for its over-enthusiastic support of Rangers Football Club and the Queen”. Now I loathe both members of the ‘Old Firm’, I’m a bit of a sceptic as regards our Royal family and I deplore illegal graffiti, so I’m not going to defend the town or its inhabitants on any of the above counts. But are the above components really defining indicators, or corroborating...