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Are you imagining a picturesque, snow-covered, winter landscape versus the current reality of a soggy, brown and grey, English rural scene, complete with mud and water running off fields into roads and gardens? The latter may, sadly, be the state of the English countryside in February 2026, but it is not of course what the Government and its local councillors are at all concerned about at the moment.  No, what they are apparently concerned about is the fact that our rural are

One strange quirk of my childhood is that I was always fascinated by politics.  My earliest political memory – I was 8 – is the assassination of President John Kennedy; and rushing to get the newspapers next morning so I could read up what had happened, and what might happen next.  The next memory is perhaps a year later, late 1964, sitting on the floor in my grandmother’s drawing room, hidden at the back of the long sofa from which she held court.  And hold court, or at leas

On 28th Dec 2025, we heard of the death of Brigitte Bardot, perhaps one of the greatest sex symbols of the 20th century. Yet fame doesn’t always last: neither my younger wife nor my two youngest daughters had ever heard of her.  But I am glad our editor has such a good memory because he reminded me of a story that I told him more than half a century ago. The story takes me back to 1966, two years before I left school.

Last month Stoker brought you the press pack camping on the White House lawn as The Donald demolished the east wing of The White House.  This month; a few local journalists, more demolition, smaller scale .   To North Norfolk (again) where a little local difficulty is starting to blow up into a cause celebre.  Norfolk is flat and windy and when the wind is in the east, cold and wet into the bargain.  That means, if you are waiting for a bus to come along….;  but no, let us

There are currently a whole host of things to write about. I considered a number of them for my contribution to this month’s Only Connect. Should I write about the worrying rise of anti-Semitism; the attempts by the Labour government to bring in a blasphemy law by the backdoor with their committee discussing a definition of Islamophobia; David Lammy’s proposals to do away with jury trials for any offence for which the maximum jail time is less than three years; the concomitan