West of Centre

In the autumn of 1988, I embarked on my second year of study in Biomedical Sciences in Liverpool. Having lived in halls of residence during my first year, myself and three friends from Wales decided to seek a house share somewhere in the city. We soon settled on a mid-terraced property in Curate Road, Anfield. At £8 each per week, the affordability soon swung it. In those days, the Fair Rent Commission was still in existence so students were still able to get reasonable value for their money. We lived close enough to Anfield football ground as to be able to hit it with a stone and perhaps the greatest irony was that none of us to my recollection were Liverpool supporters. Then as now, students were a large part of the population of Liverpool and we were generally well accepted by the locals and enjoyed living there. The bus to the city centre in the morning was still smoking upstairs and non-smoking downstairs. Either way, you stank of smoke when you got home but nobody cared really....

A week is a long time in politics; twenty years more so. As UK residents are faced with a tsunami of elections in the coming weeks, it is instructive to consider the choices which we are facing. Here in Wales, we will vote for new Assembly members, a Police and Crime commissioner and of course, membership of the European Union. Votes, it seems are like buses; nothing for ages and then three in quick succession. So what of twenty years ago? Well, nineteen to be precise. Let me explain. In 1997, Tony Blair famously ousted the Tory government which had remained impregnable since it's election in 1979 following the "Winter of discontent". "Now is the Winter of our discontent" is the opening line famously taken from Shakespeare's Richard III. He, of course, was the Yorkist king to be, recently found buried beneath a Leicester supermarket car park. More of retail later though. That 1997 election was famous for the scale of the Labour (New) win. On this side of...

My late godfather was a solicitor and a barrister from Yorkshire. As with many Yorkshire folk, he spoke his mind plainly. He was a major influence on me during my formative years but is alas no longer with us. He was a very wise man and judicious in his pronouncements. One of his favourite pieces of advice was "Never trust a solicitor". Oh the irony! Of course, in my tender years I never quite understood why this man who I idolised would make such a pronouncement about the very profession which buttered his own bread. As the years have passed, I have developed a greater understanding of those words. The first solicitor to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was a remarkable man in many ways. He was the last Prime minister for whom English was his second language (he was principally a Welsh speaker). He was the last Liberal Prime Minister. When he died in 1945, he had been the incumbent MP for Caernarfon Boroughs for an uninterrupted 55 years. As a back-bench MP befo...