Six of the Best 574

Eric Avebury, the Liberal Democrat peer and Liberal victor in the famous Orpington by-election, has died. Lib Dem Voice has an interview about his life that he gave to his son John and Seth Thevoz last year.

Emran Mian says we should not harangue Google for paying so little tax in Britain but globalise taxation.

"At Petworth we can walk through the realised dreams of the landlords: a glorious country estate that projects the power, prestige, even the seeming naturalness, of the aristocracy. The history of our more humble ancestors ... are smoothed over, buried, obscured." Mark Hailwood goes for a walk in the country.

Nicholas Whyte has been to the Royal College of Physicians' exhibition on John Dee - "scholar, courtier, magician".

"John Perry was heard crying out for assistance in the garden. When help arrived, he was found alone but in a state of some agitation. He claimed that, while working in the garden, he had been unaccountably set upon by two men dressed in white, who had assaulted him with their swords." Alwyn Turner examines what sounds very like a 17th-century UFO abduction.

Historic England presents nine breweries of architectural distinction.

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A glory-hunter's guide to supporting Leicester City

With Leicester City five points clear at the top of the Premiership, the club will be attracting a lot of new supporters - particularly former Manchester United fans from Surrey.

So the Leicester Mercury is timely in producing its 'A glory-hunter's guide to supporting Leicester City':

"Interesting fact for you," tweeted Jason Manford. "As a rule of thumb, if you can't place someone's accent, they're from Leicester." 

Unplaceable it may be, but it's there. Even though the council tried to kill it off it the 1950s with elocution lessons in schools. 

It's arguably the first proper accent you hit when you drive north from London. 

Somewhere just south of Market Harborough a barrrth becomes a bath, and as you approach the city, magical things happen to the endings of words. 

The quickleee of RP English becomes quickleh. Less-terr becomes Lestuh. It slows things down a little when there's a run of them altogether, so if you have cause to ring 999 for instance and say: "quickly, quickly, it's an emergency, there's a dire fire at Leicester Snooker Centre," well, there's a good chance there will have been casualties by the time you've finished raising the alarm.

And, as the Mercury says, if you want to understand more about the city's culture, listen to the song above.

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The Homophobic Monk can deliver his leaflets again

Clarendon Park: a shining city on a hill

The Homophobic Monk was back in the Leicester Mercury on Friday:

A 'monk' who delivered homophobic leaflets to homes in Leicestershire has had a ban that curbed his activities overturned. 

Damon Jonah Kelly (54), had earlier pleaded guilty to harassment after a married lesbian couple objected to him putting a leaflet through the letterbox of their Clarendon Park home in October, 2014. 

He became aggressive and abusive when the women challenged him about the leaflet's content, saying: "We used to burn people like you. I'm doing God's work." 

Although the wording of Kelly's leaflet was not illegal in itself, he committed the offence of harassment when he returned to the couple's home a few days later and posted an offensive letter, with distressing content, specifically addressed to "the witches".

The report in the Mercury is not entirely clear. As I understand it, the ban on his distributing leaflets has been lifted, but his conviction for harassment was upheld with a more lenient penalty.

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Sell George Osborne

If George Osborne ever hits a target, it will look something like this...



Thanks to Jeremy Corbyn and the rabble around him, George Osborne must think himself invulnerable. Hence his trip to California at the expense of Google to watch the Super Bowl.

But it is noticeable that in recent weeks more articles critical of the Chancellor have been appearing in Conservative newspapers.

At the end of January there was a vicious piece in the Sun:

George Osborne’s hopes of becoming PM have been severely dented by the Google tax shambles, Tories claim - as a senior minister branded him a "social cripple like Gordon Brown". 

Top Conservatives are increasingly worried the Chancellor does not have what it takes to succeed David Cameron, with another minister saying voters see him as "weird" like Ed Miliband.

And this morning Peter Oborne wrote in the Mail:

Mr Osborne has always been a part-time Chancellor. He is often not at the Treasury, because he is, in effect, the Government’s chief strategist and party manager as well as being Chancellor. It’s he who decides on promotions and sackings. 

He has taken charge of negotiations with the European Union and will manage the campaign to keep Britain in Europe once the referendum is called. 

In addition, he is running his personal campaign to succeed David Cameron as Tory leader, and is particularly assiduous in wining and dining Tory MPs in order to get their support. 

Let’s try a mental experiment. Let’s imagine that Britain was a public company and the finance director also ran human relations, marketing, PR and strategy — all the while intriguing to take over as chief executive. 

There would be an almighty row. Shareholders wouldn’t allow it. They would insist the finance director focused to the exclusion of all else on making certain that the accounts were properly maintained.

Maybe this has something to do with his colleagues' growing awareness that David Cameron will not be Conservative leader for ever.

If so, George Osborne is still the bookies' favourite. But I would suggest you sell George Osborne.

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