Off the Page - Current Affairs Books, Comment & Debate

Featured Topic - A British Summer

With so much going on in Britain this summer, from the devastating floods to the Foot & Mouth outbreak, over the next few weeks Off the Page will focus on a variety of these key home issues.

Expect an exclusive article on the decline in standards of farm produce written by food expert Graham Harvey, author of We Want Real Food.

We will also have another exclusive article by Andrew Alderson, author of Bankrolling Basra, on the UK government's decision to force the Iraqi interpreters that helped the British military to apply for asylum as anybody else would.

As soon as any news breaks, we will track down a suitable expert on the topic and provide you with exclusive content, updated regularly. You won't find this content anywhere else. We will also continue to follow our past Featured Topics, look at the category cloud in the sidebar for a list.

If you enjoy any of these articles, why not subscribe to our feed, either by email or RSS? Look to the sidebar on the right, and sign up for exclusive articles, extracts, interviews and videos. Or why not comment? Leave your opinion on a topic and our expert authors will get back to you.

A Tough Start for Brown

Gordon Brown waited so long to finally take over from Tony Blair, but I bet he wishes he'd left it another couple of months. Since his inauguration, he has had to deal with, as the Guardian puts it, the three Fs - floods, foot & mouth and fundamentalism.

Within his first week Brown had a series of terror alerts to deal with, followed by the worst flooding this country's seen for 150 years and then an outbreak of a potentially costly disease. He has had to learn a very swift lesson in crisis management.

So how well has he dealt with these unfortunate situations?

Click here for the Guardian's analysis and leave your thoughts below.

Or why not try reading The Future of Socialism by Anthony Crosland and Gordon Brown - according to The Times "it provides the classic formula for relating the ideals of social democracy to the realities of the modern world"

Shouldn't Good Food Come Before Cheap Motoring? By Graham Harvey

Graham Harvey won the BP Natural World Book Prize for The Killing of the Countryside in 1997. In his next book We Want Real Food he tells how modern food production has brought us to the brink of disaster, and sets out how we can fight for food that will stop us being overfed and undernourished. His new book is out in January, watch this space for more information. You can watch an interview with him here. In this exclusive article he writes about the link between the decline in quality of farm produce and the drive for cheaper road transport...

If you eat meat or dairy products, the healthiest foods come from animals grazing fresh green grass. Human beings have been producing some of their finest foods this way for more than 5,000 years.

Strange, then, that policy-makers of both the European Union and the United States seem hell-bent on destroying this form of traditional, healthy food production. Even more extraordinary, they want to sacrifice it for the benefit of the motoring lobby and the clamour for cheap road transport.

Foot & Mouth Disease - a profile

Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD) is a  virus which affects animals with cloven hooves such as cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and deer. Contrary to popular belief, the virus is not a risk to the health of humans either through contact with an infected animal or consumption of meat or milk from it. The last human case recorded was in 1966 and needed no medical attention. It could, however, have serious impact on the economics of animal farming.

There are many ways the disease can spread from animal to animal: direct contact; contact with shared foodstuffs; airborne spreading; and the movement of objects & humans is also thought to contribute.

Whilst not fatal for adult animals, it causes a drastic drop in productivity meaning milk yields would be badly affected. The animal may also become lame, jeapordising its ability to produce quality meat and even reproduce.

When a case is confirmed in the UK, a perimeter zone is set up and all infected or susceptible animals in the area are slaughtered.

This time round there are suspicions as to how the virus was transferred to the affected farm in Surrey.

For further information on the current outbreak, click here.
To see what Prime Minister Gordon Brown has to say on the matter, click here.

Check back later on in the week for an exclusive article written by food expert Graham Harvey on the impact of the outbreak.

The Blair Years - reaction

A few weeks have passed since the release of the much-hyped diary of Tony Blair's master of spin, Alastair Campbell. Wherther you've read the whole book, just the highlights or not at all, it may prove interesting to take a look at how the book has been received.

Frank Dobson of the Camden New Journal believes that "Alastair Campbell’s doctoring helped win peace in Northern Ireland but too often...it distracted from good government." He goes on to argue that this ability to distract perhaps ended up serving Blair well, "that way, he served as a lightning conductor or human shield to protect his boss. It wasn’t part of his original job description, but that’s how he ended up."

To read the full review, click here

Steve Richards of The Independent starts by calling the book "'Friends' meets '24' at No 10" and ends up saying that by the time he put this "highly readable book" down he was left with the thought that "it is a miracle that this emotionally overwrought group won one election, let alone three."

To read the full review, click here

The general consensus seems to be that The Blair Years provides the reader with compelling entertainment for most of its lengthy duration, although it is clearly censored at key points. The most commont emotion the book seems to have caused is surprise - I don't think anyone was expecting it to be an enthralling, well-written emotional rollercoaster.

Alternative reading:

The Blair Years - the inside story of his rise to power

Sorry for the recent lack of posts, I have been unwell. Off the Page will now be updated much more regularly.

For the past decade, Alastair Campbell has been as close to Tony Blair as anyone. Campbell was a key figure in Westminister and, by the end of his eight-year relationship with Blair, the most powerful spin-doctor this country has ever seen.

Now Britain has entered a so-called 'new-era' under Gordon Brown and this has been chosen as the time to release The Blair Years - Extracts from the Alastair Campbell Diaries. This hefty tome was plonked on my desk this morning and I was asked to feature it. Thankfully, I wasn't asked to read it cover to cover. At nearly 800 pages, I suspect many of those brave souls that have purchased it will flick through it focusing on what interests them, as I have.

The Independent has condensed some of the highlights to give you a taster of what to expect - a candid, revealing account of one of the most important periods in our country's political history.

If that isn't enough, the BBC is promoting the book heavily with a three-part series on BBC2 starting tomorrow (Wednesday July 11) at 8pm and continuing on Thursday and Friday.

To watch Campbell get attacked on Newsnight by the then leader of the opposition Michael Howard, during which Campbell is accused of "bullying and lying his way across our political life", click here.

As the book is digested by the blogosphere, we are sure to see an unprescedented level of opinion from all corners. Prepare yourselves.

If you enjoy any of these articles, why not subscribe to our feed, either by email or RSS? Look to the sidebar on the right, and sign up for exclusive articles, extracts, interviews and videos. Or why not comment? Leave your opinion on a topic and our expert authors will get back to you.

Blair, Brown and Britain's Energy Consumption

Paul Middleton, author of A Brief Guide to the End of Oil, has written this piece for us about how Britain's attitude towards energy consumption has changed under Blair's governance; and what the future holds for Britain under Brown.

So Mr. Blair is off, a man determined to watch the sun go down on his decade in power with a cheesy grin and a firmly held belief that Britain, and indeed the rest of the world, is better off than when he started. And while it is true that we have – and here the royal we refers only to Brits – enjoyed a sustained period of economic growth does it follow that Mr. Blair’s legacy will be un-ending economic joy? Of course not. Legacy is not so much about the past but the future; it is something that is handed down to the next generation. But what is it that we’re getting?

Off the Page - News and Events

Here is a digest of a couple of news items this week that relate to Off the Page's featured topics. They include the resurgence of nuclear power on our agenda; global warming and the first few steps towards a greener Britain; and the health of the nation.

Also included are highlights of the Institute of Contemporary Arts season, which features several of the issues we here at Off the Page have also been discussing.

Being Fair to Tony Blair by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson, authors of Fantasy Island

Having written Fantasy Island, Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson have one more thing to add...

Books have beginnings and endings, in terms of their production as much as of the narrative they contain. Our book, Fantasy Island is gone now, printed, packed into crates, despatched here and there, unalterable.

For most people, that will sound a statement of the blindingly obvious. But for both of us, who started our national journalistic careers on a wire service, it goes against the grain. There is no chance now to put right anything that is wrong. The process has the finality of the little red Royal Mail van disappearing down the lane on the last posting day before Christmas - if it isn't in there now, it is too late.

So, as the air is thick with commentary on Mr Blair's 'legacy', is there anything we would have put it or taken out?

Tony Blair - Legacy and Lies by David Craig

David Craig, author of Plundering the Public Sector, has written this article about what he thinks of the country Tony Blair is on the brink of leaving behind. Do you agree with him? Or is there another way of looking at it? Have a read, leave your comments below and David Craig will get back to you.

SO, Blair is finally off and millions of words will be written by hordes of pundits, self-styled insiders and the man himself about his legacy.

On the plus side, of course, we finally have something looking like peace in Northern Ireland – an achievement that should be recognised. However Blair’s ambition to be seen as an international statesman was wrecked by the Iraq debacle and his European strategy hit the rocks when he was comprehensively outmanoeuvred by Chirac – the French keep their agricultural subsidies, we start losing our rebate. So, apart from Ireland, that just leaves the so-called ‘transformation’ of public services as Blair’s potential legacy.

So do we have schools, prisons and hospitals that are the envy of the world?

The answer is not hard to find...

Featured Topic - The Legacy of Tony Blair, the future of Britain & much more

Over the next few weeks, Off the Page is going to focus on Tony Blair and his legacy, and the role Gordon Brown has played in it. We have gathered several expert writers from different backgrounds, each of whom is going to contribute ideas and commentary to the subject.

First up are Larry Elliott & Dan Atkinson whose book Fantasy Island and the related article posted below try to draw attention to mistakes they believe Blair has made beyond the Iraq issue, and how Gordon Brown has played a big part in all this. Will Britain under Brown therefore be any different?

We also have David Craig, author of Plundering the Public Sector, a book about how in attempting to modernize public services, New Labour are wasting billions of taxpayers' money on consultants and 'experts'.

If you enjoy any of these articles, why not subscribe to our feed, either by email or RSS? Look to the sidebar on the right, and sign up for exclusive articles, extracts, interviews and videos. Or why not comment? Leave your opinion on a topic and our expert authors will get back to you.

The Blair Legacy - more than Iraq?

The hot topic of the moment is Tony Blair's legacy. What will he be remembered for? What would he like to be remembered for? Everyone's talking about Iraq - will it be the soon-to-be-former Prime Minister's defining moment? Larry Elliot and Dan Atkinson argue in their book Fantasy Island that Tony Blair should not be remebmered solely for mistakes made over Iraq. Instead light should be brought to the countless other mistakes he has made, leaving behind him a seedy dreamworld mired in debt, drifting into a crisis of unemployment with a diplomatic and military role it cannot afford.

Here is an article written by Fantasy Island authors Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson:

HE was the Prime Minister with the Scottish surname and the posh English voice, a man with a touch of the actor and a reputation for slipperiness who presided over a consumer boom, committed Britain to buying American missiles and hankered after deeper British integration in Europe.

For his critics, he was someone whose reputation for creating a balmy economic climate came at a price to be paid in the years to come.

But enough of Harold Macmillan. What of Tony Blair’s legacy?

Fallujah by Jonathan Holmes - Exclusive Extracts

This post is dedicated to bringing you extracts of Fallujah over the next few days. We have three for you, with a new one for you here every day and an extra special feature at the end.

Here is part one of our exclusive extracts available for you to download. We have for you the introduction to the book, in which writer Jonathan Holmes talks about why he was inspired to write this play and how he feels it is an important topic. Over the next couple of days we will also be bringing you a transcript of an interview with Condoleezza Rice, plus the first scene of the play itself a part of which is based on the interview.

Download fallujah_introduction.pdf

As promised here's part 2 of our series of extracts of Fallujah. The book is not just a transcript of the play, it also features opinion on the topic from a variety of different sources, as well as inspiration. This extract is a transcript of a very revealing interview with Condoleezza Rice on which the first scene of the play is based.

Download fallujah_cr_interview.pdf

Here is part 3, the final extract we have for you. It is of the prologue and first scene of the play, hope you enjoy it.

Download fallujah_prologue_scene_1.pdf

We're not done yet, we also have for an audio stream of a scene of the play for your enjoyment. Click here to listen.

Fallujah by Jonathan Holmes, ISBN 978-1845293734