Six of the Best 601

"Like most wars, this one will end inconclusively with a narrow margin on a low turnout and the losers promising to keep fighting once they have regrouped and rearmed." Vince Cable takes a humorous look at referendum campaign.

Martin Hancox on the insanity of the badger cull.

A proposed new law would make it harder to criticise the ruling regime on Jersey. Voice for Children has the details.

"Reiner ends his memory with an envious observation: 'The word fuck is a perfectly good word now.' 'I never minded Richard Pryor saying it,' says Van Dyke, 'but so many comedians use it constantly instead of good material. That’s when it gets offensive.'" Katherine Brodsky interviews Dick Van Dyke and Carl Reiner, who are both past 90 but still crackling with ideas.

"If you’d have said that to us 50 years ago, that’d we’d be doing this still, we would have not believed it. That was the time Lennon said that he didn’t expect to be still doing it when he was 30!" Midlands What's On interviews Rod Argent from the Zombies.

Can you name the six London Underground stations named after pubs? Londonist can.

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Leicester march to stop the badger cull

In Leicester today, as a citizen journalist, I went along to see people assembling for the march against the badger cull. Then I met someone I knew and decided to join in.

It's a good cause. The government's cull of badgers has more to do with placating the farming vote than it does with scientific evidence for the best way of eradicating bovine TB.

While we were waiting to set off there was a speech, which turned out to be chiefly about the junior doctors' dispute with the government, and a song. The latter, as far as I could tell, was about Liz Truss having blood on her hands.

One of the attractive thing about green campaigning is that it has the potential to decouple conservative voters from the Conservative Party. That possibility was far from the organisers of today's event, but then moderate conservative people do not organise marches.

We marched from Victoria Park down New Walk to the Town Hall Square and then Jubilee Square. In the two squares where we were addressed by Danny Dyer (Badger Trust) and Mark Jones (Born Free Foundation).

At Town Hall Square a couple had just got married and they insisted on having their photos taken with us.

Later, at Jubilee Square, someone was asked to the microphone to read a poem he had written. I became a citizen journalist again and slipped away.

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Leicester march to Stop the Badger Cull 21 May

Full details on Badger Action News.

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