Simon Clark

1 week ago | taking-liberties.squarespace.com | Simon Clark

Out of the failure to run the country efficiently emerges a light blue phoenix with a pint of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, chuckling menacingly. (Tim Stanley, Telegraph, May 2, 2025)I’m not going to add to the many words that have been written about last week’s local elections. Nor am I going to jump on the Reform/Farage bandwagon because my position hasn’t changed - I’m still Team Kemi, for a number of reasons.

1 week ago | taking-liberties.squarespace.com | Simon Clark

Dressed to impress Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 9:42 My good friend Gary Ling, who I have known since university, turned heads at a local election count on Thursday. Resplendent in a pale blue Nigerian saree, Gary attracted admiring glances from friends and foes. His outfit even caught the attention of a regional news photographer whose picture of Reform UK’s local ‘spokesperson’ duly appeared in a Watford Observer report.

1 week ago | taking-liberties.squarespace.com | Simon Clark

Further to my post about liberty-minded journalists leaving the UK to move to Washington DC, it has been suggested that Forest might organise an event there. What a great idea. I would love that. My first visit to Washington was in April 1983. As I have mentioned before, I was one of 20 young journalists, all based in Europe, who were invited by the Young America’s Foundation, a Republican youth organisation, to spend two weeks in the capital.

2 weeks ago | taking-liberties.squarespace.com | Simon Clark

Jeremy Vine is not a c*nt but I’m glad he’s stopped posting his cycling videos Wednesday, April 30, 2025 at 9:50 Broadcaster Jeremy Vine has announced that he will no longer post cycling videos on social media due to the abuse he receives. For the past decade Vine - who cycles to work in London wearing a helmet camera - has been posting clips that purport to show evidence of poor or even dangerous driving that puts cyclists like him at risk of serious injury.

2 weeks ago | taking-liberties.squarespace.com | Simon Clark

The news that Harry Cole, political editor of The Sun, is moving to Washington DC, where he will be the paper’s editor-at-large, seems to be an increasing trend. A few months ago Kate Andrews, formerly economics editor at The Spectator, announced her move to Washington. Andrews, who is now deputy editor of The Spectator World, the global edition of the magazine, had previously written several articles critical of smoking bans.