Michael White's Blog
May 19, 2021
India variant creates tension among Tories – Politics Weekly podcast
Heather Stewart and Rafael Behr look at domestic pressures over the India coronavirus variant as the UK continues to unlock. Plus, to celebrate the Guardian’s 200th birthday, Heather speaks with three former political editors about how the job, and its challenges, have changed
As concern over the India coronavirus variant rises, some experts think it was a mistake for Boris Johnson to go ahead with the easing of lockdown restrictions on Monday. Heather Stewart talks to Rafael Behr about mounting pressures on the government over its border policy and the roadmap out of lockdown.
Plus: to celebrate the Guardian’s 200th birthday, Michael White, Patrick Wintour and Anushka Asthana speak with Heather Stewart about how the job of political editor has changed over the years, and those disaster moments in the lobby that keep them up at night.
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July 8, 2020
Edward Heath at 80 still plans to have the last word – archive, 1996
9 July 1996: The public Heath has never been easily lovable and all those efforts to humanise a very private man, as musician, yachtsman, even as Father of the Commons, have never quite worked
The former Conservative premier Sir Edward Heath yesterday warmed up for his 80th birthday celebration today in characteristically candid style by giving yet another interview in which he criticised his government and his party.
Europe? The pro-Europeans kept quiet out of loyalty to John Major, he told Radio 4’s World at One. “We may have been wrong, but it was out of loyalty that we did it. It may be the time has come when we have all got to shout out.”
Related: From the archive: Ted Heath on leading Britain towards the EEC
Related: Edward Heath writes about his passion for music: From the archive, 25 November 1976
Continue reading...April 16, 2020
George Mackie obituary
George Mackie, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 70, was a straightforward man, but one of paradox. He was a Kincardineshire Scot who lived in southern England, an Essex farmer who was also a socialist, a formidable Scottish rugby international who was notably soft-spoken. “A gentle giant, never the loudest around the dinner table, but usually the wisest,” said his friend Brian Wilson, the politician.
The son of Jeannie (nee Inglis Milne) and John Mackie, George sprang from a progressive farming dynasty in north-east Scotland. Radicalised by poverty he saw in Glasgow as a young man, his father became a leading Tribune Group leftwinger. MP for Enfield East (1959-74), he was a respected junior agriculture minister, later chairman of the Forestry Commission (1976-79) until Margaret Thatcher sacked him.
Continue reading...January 14, 2020
Robert Armstrong obituary
Robert Armstrong, who has died from a brain tumour aged 76, was a Guardian sports writer, specialising in football, rugby and tennis, his own game. Known for the “no frills” accuracy of his reports, he filed reassuringly ahead of deadline from World Cups and major tours in far-flung corners of the world, as well as from Wimbledon.
But he also left his mark on the paper for which he worked for almost 30 years as a highly effective National Union of Journalists (NUJ) official, championing better pay and conditions for his colleagues.
Continue reading...May 26, 2019
How Theresa May’s exit compares with other difficult departures from No 10
Both Brexit camps claim Sir Robert Peel, the Tory moderniser whose 1846 resignation crisis most resembles May’s. But he had succeeded where she failed. Determined to cut food prices for industrial workers, Peel pushed through repeal of protectionist Corn Laws with opposition help. In retaliation, rightwing enemies defeated his Irish Coercion bill. Peel resisted Queen Victoria’s appeal to stay, but grateful crowds cheered him as he walked to the Commons to resign. He slipped out by a side door, but was spotted and cheered home. Divided Tories lost office for 20 years.
Continue reading...April 24, 2019
From the archive: Coca-Cola changes its formula – 25 April 1985
25 April 1985: The new taste is said to be smoother, rounder and bolder, not to mention more harmonious
The hard-nosed men of the New York Stock Exchange yesterday made a snap judgment on the most sensational news in the mighty American soft drinks industry for 99 years. Without even trying the new, sweeter formula Coca-Cola, they backed the initial shock reaction of the amateurs: it tastes more like Pepsi.
By lunchtime yesterday Coca-Cola shares had taken another 1.50 cent pounding on top of the 1.60 they sustained in late trading after the new formula was officially unveiled on Monday, despite the assurances of Coke’s chairman, Mr Roberto Goizueta, that the new taste is smoother, rounder and bolder, not to mention more harmonious. Reporters disagreed.
Related: Milk Coke: another classic from the nation that invented Cheeky Vimto
Continue reading...February 13, 2019
Robin Callard obituary
For more than 20 years Robin Callard, who has died of motor neurone disease aged 73, was professor of immunobiology at University College London, attached to the Institute of Child Health (ICH), clinical partner of Great Ormond Street hospital.
Born and raised in Hamilton, New Zealand, Robin was the eldest child of Eddie Callard, an entrepreneurial Australian photographer, and Vivienne (nee Wilson), who ran a fashion shop. A fourth generation Kiwi, Vivienne was also a descendant of Joseph Priestley, the eighteenth-century radical polymath and scientist widely credited with the discovery of oxygen.
Continue reading...October 25, 2018
How to change a prime minister – Politics Weekly podcast
Jessica Elgot is joined by Michael White, Katy Balls and John Crace to discuss Theresa May’s future. Also this week: Jonathan Holslag explains how patterns in history can help us predict today’s political upheavals
After a week in which anonymous Tory MPs briefed violent rhetoric to the Sunday papers, and rumours once again swirled around Westminster about a confidence vote, Theresa May faced down her critics at the Conservative party’s 1922 Committee.
She emerged looking stronger than she has for weeks, but for how long can she continue to survive in her own hostile environment?
Continue reading...August 29, 2018
John Goodwin obituary
John Goodwin, who has died aged 97, was a theatre public relations man whose skills earned him an influence far beyond the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, with which he was associated for most of his working life.
He was born in London, where his father, Albert Goodwin, worked for the Inland Revenue; his mother was the musical comedy actor Jessie Lonnen, whose father, EJ Lonnen, had also been a star in burlesque, and Johnny was drawn to the theatre from childhood. After second world war service in the Royal Navy, during which he saw action on a destroyer in the North Atlantic, he first joined what was then still the Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford in 1948.
Continue reading...March 18, 2018
Howard Green obituary
Howard Green, who has died aged 91, was my first editor, a journalist of the old school who worked his way up from junior reporter at 15 to the board of Thomson Regional Newspapers (TRN) when it was a force in the British regional press.
In the mid-1960s he was a key player in the plans of his Canadian proprietor, Lord (Roy) Thomson of Fleet, to ring London with new evening papers, located on the emerging motorway network and printed on state-of-the-art web offset presses. With well-run local papers still profitable, the big idea was eventually to print and distribute Fleet Street newspapers away from the clutches of its famously disruptive unions.
Continue reading...Michael White's Blog
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