They are, but the degree to which the bureaucracy manage those votes is something for realistic consideration, not sarcastic inverted commas

One of Barber's acolytes who ended up at another Durham college expected me to be appalled that the very fine portrait of him that the college have was by the excellent Lizzie Rowe, and claimed that Hatfield would never have commissioned Lizzie if they knew about her life journey.

We probably all need , carefully, to distinguish between workers rights and trades union rights - especially in a time a time when the majority of workers aren't unionised and even trades union members may have serious political doubts about the party trades union bureaucrats choose to fund.

Not many of those accounts leading on the exoneration of Dr Upton or the tribunals preference for her version of events. Funny that....

This is commonplace in some areas - Cramlington in Northumberland is plagued by these leeches

An intriguing article with many familiar names, but my view as a local is that the seed bed in which Reform grew predates the Brexit furore and owes much more to political failures by Labour and others garethdavies.medium.com/the-party-of...

There's an article in the Grauniad archives about Davidson's work in Ebbw Vale - and the steelworks you can see in the background - pedantically it's not the Ebbw Valley since the river there is the Ebbw Fawr www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

He did once try to get in the Labour Party as well, according to those who know....

Wonder if this famous episode in Barry's career wil get another airing on TV? www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/local-n...

Not a problem in law except when it comes to setting the council tax or associated decisions.....

This is sort of the approach the Daily Mail used about Tony Blair being in a rock band when at uni.

Since this conversation is quickly heading downhill let's call it at an end eh?

Hang on -do all those other companies require me to pay a compulsory tax on pain of criminal prosecution? You're the one who's so keen to defend the BBC by slagging off every other company while ignoring that particular elephant in the room...

One of the curiosities about this argument is that the BBC does claim it has some overarching set of Reithian values that define what is special about it - but only when that claim works to its benefit. I do love to see you using the old fashioned maximalist argument too - but I disagree.

In what way is it bizarre? The BBC have spent years promoting transphobic arguments and platforming bigots - why shouldn't we choose to boycott them? You, of course, are free to disagree, but as ever, that might disclose what your priorities are...

And? Back in the 70s and 80s we boycotted Barclays Bank because of their links to apartheid south Africa - the fact that I was in the same union as many Barclays employees (and branch chair for some of them) didn't change my moral stance. I respected the workers, but the boycott mattered.

I have a simple and practical solution. Journalists should be banned from using unnamed sources. I get the ethical issues around whistle blowing but it's mainly now used to sanitizer the retelling of gossip, innuendo and propaganda. Last week's briefings about Streeting are the perfect example.

From a new chapter by Jean du Toit scholar.google.com/citations?us... you can find the chapter here www.academia.edu/resource/wor... Sometimes paragraphs just leap off the page....