ALICE MAHON is no shrinking violet. She is the principled and outspoken MP for Halifax. She is also a close friend who went to Moscow to monitor the Russian elections in December and who, as part of this visit, came face to face with the ultra-nationalist-fascist.....
13/01/94 "Lost In The Moral Amaze"
WELCOME to 1994, a world in which over 20 million people live without a country they can call their own; where, even distanced from the refugee crisis, Britain starts the year with three million children living in poverty, spiraling crime figures and with a.....
20/01/94 "Thorpe: Britain's Nuclear Folly"
WEDNESDAY, December 15, 1993, will be remembered in the House of Commons as the day when the Government announced its joint statement on Northern Ireland. A packed House, a charged atmosphere and a statement for future peace.
27/01/94 "We Must Reclaim Wayward Minds"
IN THE MONTHS leading up to Christmas a daring raid took place. In stores across America people had been buying toys and then, surreptitiously, bringing them back.
It was fiendishly clever and almost legal. The toys in question were dolls: Barbie and GI Joe......
03/02/94 "Lighting A Candle For Nakhira"
Alan Simpson has championed the causes of Dwight and Beverley Harris, convicted of manslaughter after their daughter Nakhira died of diabetes. Two years after the death, the Nottingham South MP presents his view of the case......
10/02/94 "Towards A Sweatshop Society"
IMAGINE for a moment that you own a business... two in fact. One of these is based here, providing jobs for local people, but selling your goods both nationally and internationally. Perhaps your own family and friends are even part of the workforce....
17/02/94 "Spare Us from Fear And Greed"
THE world is driven by two emotional forces, fear and greed ... this has been a good week for greed." This comment, made casually by a financial commentator being interviewed by the BBC World Service, stopped me in my tracks.......
24/02/94 "Hunt Law - Will Crime be the Winner"
FORGET about the Yardies. I want to tell you about a new bunch of criminals who are about to create huge upheavals amongst everyday life in Britain. They are bright, single-minded and well organised. In a short while we will probably come.......
25/02/94 "Early Lessons In Life For MP's"
THE staunch beliefs of Nottingham's Labour MP's stem from the valuable lessons they learned early in life. Nottingham North MP Graham Allen left school to work in a warehouse, but it was not long before he took a dislike to the way the management treated.....
25/02/94 "Blunkett Questions Health Bosses"
SHADOW Health Secretary David Blunkett has quizzed health chiefs over services in Nottingham after an Evening Post campaign highlighted a beds shortage.
Mr Blunkett said he was drawn to the city after closely following the Post's campaign on......
03/03/94 "Crime - And Punishment"
I HAVE three children, and like most parents (on a good day) would say, without hesitation, that I would give my life for them. But what if the question were a different one? Would I give my to them? And what would I do if this s not enough?
10/03/94 "Taxing Time For 'Have Nots'"
DO YOU remember John Major talking about wanting a society in which wealth "Cascaded down from generation to generation"? It conjured up die most wonderful images. You could almost see a variation on the adverts for the Halifax Building Society.....
17/03/94 "Britain Busy Doing Nothing" MICKEY MOUSE lives on. In a dramatic move, in advance of the annual meeting of shareholders, Walt Disney announced the deal which was to save EuroDisney from collapse.It was the result of a lot of heavy duty bargaining and brinkmanship.....
24/03/94 "Will Hurd's Eurovision Get The Birdie" THE prospects of two very different people symbolise the growing divide that is taking place over the place of Britain in Europe. The first is Douglas Hurd, Foreign Secretary, and probably the only Government minister capable of not dropping himself.......
31/03/94 "In Sickness And In Wealth" A SHORT, polite letter arrived in my post this week. It came from Tony Blair, asking if I would support his candidature for Leader of the Labour Party. With so much of this election being fought out in (and by) the Press, I thought you might not........
08/04/94 "Why Ban Nasties - Try Taxing Them" "WISH, I wish, that banning violent videos was the answer to some of the horrific acts of violence involving children that we have come to witness in recent years. My trouble is that, although the suggestion about 'banning' seems to be the flavour of the month......
15/04/94 "Pay The Price For Pregnancy" IT is an act which is as natural as breathing itself, turns grown adults into gibbering idiots and is often used as a symbol of hope and continuity which passes from one generation to another. What I am talking about is the act of producing a child of your own.....
21/04/94 "Justice - A Rare Exhibit In The Law" The letter of invitation had dropped through my door. Was this to be my moment of glory or just a sellout to the establishment? I had been invited to 11 Downing Street—the Chancellor of the Exchequer's squat-to.....
28/04/94 "Delays On The Line For New Network" IN one of the more memorable moments of his political career as leader of the Labour Party, Jim Callaghan reflected on the lessons he had learnt from the mess of his five per cent pay policy regime and the abandonment of its subsequent stage.
05/05/94 "A High Price For 'Success'" THERE are two reasons why I've decided not to have a go at John Major this week. The first is that there is already a fairly long queue of contenders on his own side. Just when he thought he could concentrate on the frontal onslaught that the Conservatives.....
12/05/94 "Scott Free - Disabled Nil" PARLIAMENT, this week, has been engrossed in giving new meaning to the words' 'Scot-free'. The row that has been brewing revolves around the question of whether Nicholas Scott, the Minister of state for social security......
19/05/94 "Arms Race: 40,000 Steps To Sanity" MY feet are killing me and my leg muscles moan in sympathy. I must have been crazy to agree to run in this weekend's London Marathon. My brain must have been half asleep when I was asked to do it — either that or senility is setting in early.
26/05/94 "Britain For Sale, Or To rent Out" JOHN MAJOR opened his Euro campaign with the warning about other parties which would "dilute our national identity". But in the Britain he has created, what does it mean to be British?
02/06/94 "A Measure Of Your Worth" WHAT are you worth? This isn't a flippant question. It is the key to some of the most important issues that will hang over the rest of this century. Your first answer to my question is likely to be personal; couched in terms of what you think.....
09/06/94 "Womans World For The Taking" THIS is a remarkable day. And yet it took my daughter to make me aware of the unique simplicities which make it so special. Here I am, 45 years old and long in the tooth as far as political campaigning is concerned, but I was brought up sharp by.....
15/06/94 "Slice Of Political Pizza" A MAMMOTH polling exercise is beginning to roll its cumbersome way through the intestines of the Labour Party. It is the ballot for the Party leader. Millions of ballot papers are now speeding, stumbling or crawling their way towards.....
22/06/94 "Why British Is Still The Best" THERE are some moments which stay with you forever. The time Karen and Roger Humphries walked into the hotel lounge carrying baby Abbie was certainly one of these. Cameras flashed and clicked. The 'brat pack' actually clapped and cheered.
29/06/94 "Time to Bloom In The Sunlight" A SHORT, polite letter arrived in my post this week. It came from Tony Blair, asking if I would support his candidature for Leader of the Labour Party. With so much of this election being fought out in (and by) the Press, I thought you might not mind if my reply was equally public.