Not a day longer

Natually I will oppose any attempt by the government to extend the period of detention without charge by longer than 28 days - it is far too long already - but I've not blogged specifically on this since Sunny Hundal and my co-conspirators over at Liberal Conspiracy are doing a pretty good job already.

I would just add that on the whole gamut of issues surrounding individual liberty, including of course ID cards, it seems to me that the Tories are currently more in tune with the public mood than the government, a peculiar and rather dangerous position for an avowedly left-of-centre administration to be in.

Frustrate their knavish tricks

Hard on the heels of the controversy about whether Wales should be represented on the Union Jack, I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone kicked up a fuss about the sixth verse of the National Anthem, with its references to crushing "Rebellious Scots."

Former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith says "concerns" have been raised that the anthem is "anti-Scottish." But if indeed such concerns have been raised, it is clearly by people who don't know what they are talking about.

The verse about rebellious Scots was abandoned after the collapse of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 and never officially became part of the National Anthem as such. It does not appear in any hymnbook or songbook I have ever seen, and I would be surprised if it has been sung even once in public worship during the last 200 years.

In short, I think someone is trying to manufacture a non-existent row here. I wonder why.

On a related topic, I was one of thousands of people who signed a Downing Street petition in support of a specific anthem for England separate from the UK anthem. A couple of weeks back, I received the following rather dismal response from No 10.

"There are currently no plans to introduce an official English anthem, but the Government recognises that the constituent parts of the United Kingdom may quite properly have national songs for which they have a particular attachment. However, the choice of anthem at sporting events is entirely a matter for the sport concerned."

Tony Holland RIP

I'm a bit late in the day with this, but Tony Holland was in my view one of the foremost television figures of the last 30 years. He not only created EastEnders and most of its core characters (the Beales and Fowlers were based on his own family), he was the programme's creative driving force in the days when it was worth watching.

His contribution to British television over the last half century is matched only by that of another Tony - Tony Warren, the creator of Coronation Street when it, too, was a ground-breaking drama. Interestingly both men were gay, which may or may not have made it easier for them to write for what have always been primarily female audiences.