William Hague’s office has kindly emailed to deny that it hosted the New York launch if his biography of William Wilberforce. I had asked Hague to explain why he had failed to declare the sponsorship in the House of Commons’ Register of Members Financial Interests.

Here’s how the Atlantic Bridge used to describe the event on its website:

‘The Atlantic Bridge is proud to host an evening with William Hague – the shadow foreign secretary of the British Parliament – to celebrate his latest literary achievement, a major biography of the abolitionist William Wilberforce.’

Mr Hague’s personal assistant has written that no declaration was made as no fee was paid. Yet it is clear that Hague benefitted from the promotion of his book and he would he have been best advised to declare the sponsorship.

His PA, clearly not worried that the Charity Commission is investigating allegations that the Atlantic Bridge is party political, retorts: ‘Mr Hague was in New York to undertake some engagements in connection with the publication of his book in the US and Atlantic Bridge, given its links with the Conservative Party, asked Mr Hague if he could address one of their events.’

The Atlantic Bridge operates two charities, one in the UK and one is the USA, and William Hague has refused to confirm which paid this sponsorship (although it does not appear in the UK accounts). US law forbids, ‘any person… in a position to exercise substantial influence over the affairs of the organization’ from benefitting from its largesse. William Hague is a member of the Atlantic Bridge Advisory Board.
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The Atlantic Bridge, a UK charity founded by Dr Liam Fox, has launched a new website with references to its ‘simple aim of “Strengthening the Special Relationship” exemplified by the Reagan-Thatcher partnership of the 1980s,’ removed. The pledge has also been removed from the website of its sister US charity, Atlantic Bridge Inc.

The move comes as the Charity Commission investigates a number of allegations including that the Atlantic Bridge has broken charity law by supporting a political party.

In addition, the organisation now pays lip service to the public benefit requirements of the 2006 Charities Act, claiming ‘it is axiomatic that good relations with other countries are for the public benefit’ and so, apparently, that they need offer no evidence that their work is charitable.

The Atlantic Bridge spends its money, much of which would otherwise be collected as tax, helping senior Conservatives and their US allies get together. They certainly need some support. When US senator Jon Kyl came to London to see Henry Kissinger receive the oxymoronic Thatcher Medal of Freedom, the Atlantic Bridge paid out around £1,450 on his hotel room alone.

The Charity Commission has issued guidance specific to the Atlantic Bridge over at least three letters and one face-to-face meeting. But the commission argues it is in the public interest to keep this guidance secret, a move that fuels suspicions that the regulator is bending over backwards to protect senior Conservatives connected to the Atlantic Bridge, including William Hague, George Obsborne, Chris Grayling and Michael Gove.
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Wandering around Urbis has left the building at the weekend, it was hard not admire the achievements of Urbis. Urbis was a proper Manchester museum fully in tune with the confident concept of the original modern city, birthplace of the industrial revolution and now a world centre for the popular culture of the post industrial age.

That was never going to be an easy sell, but there is no doubt that its most recent exhibitions demonstrated that Urbis had found its groove, only for the city council to suffer a sudden crisis of confidence and, without consultation, poach the failing National Football Museum from Preston. (Which really doesn’t want to come to Manchester.)

The National Football Museum is quite a gamble for Manchester. Urbis will close with visitor numbers at a high of 250,000 a year. The National Football Museum attracts just 100,000 to Preston, but is targeted with quadrupling that to 400,000 thanks to its swanky new address. If it doesn’t, the arts throughout Manchester will suffer.

And there are good reasons to suspect that a National Football Museum will fail wherever it is situated. Football is a tribal pursuit. You support your team through thick and thin. You don’t worry about who owns the team or what players get up to off the pitch and quickly forgive them sins on the pitch. You may exhibit as much bias and prejudice as you like. It’s an outlet for all that stuff.

When it comes to artefacts, what’s sacred to one set of fans is less than worthless to another, which is why it makes sense for each club to have its own collection of memorabilia.

This points to the central flaw in a National Football Museum. Museums intellectualise their subjects — that’s what they’re for — but football is not an intellectual pursuit, nor does it aspire to be an intellectual pursuit. Nor should it aspire to be an intellectual pursuit. And that’s why the National Football Museum is doomed to miss its challenging targets.

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Fed up with MyDavidCameron.com’s successful spoofing of the Conservative Party’s poster campaigns, ConservativeHome has entered the fray with a ‘what if these were Labour posters’ spin.

Predictably they have a go at people on the dole and immigrants, but this one — Burglar — is my favourite. It reminds me of when I was burgled back in 1992. I was out of work at the time. The country was in deep recession, but unlike today the government did nothing to lessen the impact on unemployment which peaked at around 3 million that year.

With no inheritance or trust fund to fall back on, I’ve always identified with people who have to earn their own money and have always thought unemployment the most important of economic indicators. Cameron takes advice from Norman Lamont, the Tory chancellor who presided over that 1990s recession and reckoned: ‘Rising unemployment and the recession have been the price we have had to pay to get inflation down. That price is well worth paying.’ That nasty inflation, which reduces the value of people’s savings, had apparently been caused by the Nigel Lawson, the Tory chancellor who managed the economy for most of the 1980s. What a shower!

During this recession unemployment appears to have peaked at 1.72 million, now down to 1.64 million. Labour has presided over a painful recession, but it has not been as painful as the recessions of 1990s or 1980s, because Labour has put protecting jobs first.

Anyway, back to burglar. It took the police two hours to respond to our call and one of the officers described their visit as a ‘PR exercise’. As this MyLabourPoster wag hints, the Tories put all their money into building prisons, actually catching burglars to put in them was not a priority and so the Conservatives cut the number of police right back. They had this idea that harsh punishment is a deterrent; a position that assumes burglars expect to get caught and forgets that many have drug habits that stop them worrying about punishment.

More recently crime rates, especially burglaries, have dropped back despite the recession.

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Assuming that the horrors of the holocaust are well known to its audience, The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas concentrates on those who — while close to the horror — knew nothing or failed to find out. Bruno, the lonely eight-year-old son of a concentration commandant, might be forgiven his ignorance, but forgiving his mother is much harder. So, perhaps aware of this, part way through the film we’re exposed to remade scenes from The Fuhrer gives the Jews a City, to convince us that everybody did not know what was going on.

Bruno is certainly convinced, despite his friendship with a boy he’s stumbled across and who he meets at the edge of the camp fence. His friendship with the boy is credible, but the film struggles to engage us. There is no real journey, just the boredom of being a child with nothing to do.

We never real care for Bruno, so when The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas reaches it’s powerful conclusion — a conclusion that largely redeems it — we find that we are not rooting for the boy, but wishing a cruel and unusual punishment upon his parents.

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A Raisin in the Sun is not just about the dreams that tear a family apart as they compete to be made real by an inheritance — although it is all that — it is a play that tackles racial identity and prejudice, poverty and values that change across generations. And yet it remains an easy going often humorous piece made real by universally strong performances. No wonder this production is receiving five star reviews from the Guardian and Telegraph alike.

Writing in the late 1950s, on the brink of America’s civil rights revolution, Lorraine Hansberry must have been tempted to polemicise and to idealise her subjects, yet instead she successfully presents them as flawed, and so genuine, human beings. They can be stubborn, they can be cruel, they can be kind and they can be duped.

Matriarch Lena is all too aware of her status as the fourth generation of her family to live in America and how close she is to the slave generations before her. She still feels rootless, but is desperate to conform. She wants the family to leave the ghetto, but the step up is to a white area; an area where the people have worked hard to keep things nice.

Her son Walter Lee, whose anger and frustration often dominates the stage, looks forward naively to entering into business and pursuing the American dream, but in his desperation takes a risk too far, while his exasperation threatens to pull his family apart. Daughter Beneatha’s dream of becoming a doctor seems similarly fanciful (a black woman doctor!?), but her need to look beyond America to find her roots enables her to find a way.

The inconclusive ending is similarly brave and ensures the audience leave with plenty to think about.

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Guy Ritchie’s transformation of Sherlock Holmes into an intellectual, flawed all-action hero could not have hoped to meet with greater success. Perfectly cast, not that Robert Downey Jnr ever disappoints, this is probably the most sophisticated on screen characterisation of Sherlock Holmes.

This is a gritty Holmes, cutting through the villain’s cloak of supernatural mumbo jumbo with force and reason. All in all a great update that banishes the stuffiness of previous adaptations.

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Following on from my spotting Sky News graphics that exaggerate the Tory poll lead, I have received a wonderfully honest reply from Viewer Relations:

Dear Stephen
Thank you for your email which was sent to Sky News.
I can advise that you are absolutely right. The graphics are misleading. The figures are of course correct, which is the main thing. But the proportions on the bar graph were wrongly calculated.
Thank you for pointing this out.
Regards
Annette
Viewer Relations

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A US non-profit (the UK equivalent would be a charity), spending US$2,471.70 on one nights’ accommodation for a US senator might ordinarily raise some eyebrows but, to be fair, this non-profit is the Atlantic Bridge, Inc., which has been established as a travel club for senior members of the British Conservative Party and their US allies.

To be clear, that US$2,471.70 (about £1,450 at the time) was for Senator Jon Kyl’s hotel room only. There’s no travel in that total; his airfare, also met the US charity, was US$4,405.63 (£2,650) and a further US$100 (£60) went on food (perhaps he was saving himself for that night’s fund raising dinner).

Senator Jon Kyl is a particularly good friend of the Conservatives and was in London to see Henry Kissinger receive the oxymoronic Margaret Thatcher Medal of Freedom. A similar event with Rudolph Giuliani in 2007 raised £53,037 with an event auction raising a further £40,000 (US$185,265 in total). The cheap seats at this event were £400 (US$650), with priority seating available at an extra £350 (US$580).

As the Honorary US chair of the Atlantic Bridge, Senator Jon Kyl is one of the people these charities (the Atlantic Bridge consists of a UK and a US charity) have been established to support. Their role is to divert money that would otherwise be collected as tax to supporting the Thatcherite wing of the British Conservative Party. They ensure that instead of helping pay for healthcare, education, national debt or equipping troops in Afghanistan, this money instead ensures that people like Sen. Jon Kyl have somewhere nice to stay while on their jollies.

Interestingly, Sen. Jon Kyl’s hotel bill did catch the eye of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. But Sen. Jon Kyl was able to fob them off. He blamed the well-known Tory Party fundraiser Sallie Hendry and claimed that the fundraiser was actually an educational event.

Given our MPs’ current reputation, the suspicion must be that the only educating going on was Sen. Jon Kyl receiving a master class in how to maximise one’s expenses.
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While nobody should pretend a Tory lead is a good thing, I’ve not really taken any interest in opinion polls, until I realised how easily Tories wobble when their lead falls into single figures.

There are still many Conservatives who fear that Cameron’s moderate rhetoric would translate into a moderate government and are desperate to seize the agenda. So every dip in the polls is an opportunity to offer him some advice, like come clean and admit you want to slash and burn public services, saying you won’t is a ‘gaffe’.

The truth is that Cameron is very reluctant to let us know what he’d do in power. And given that so many of his shadow cabinet — William Hague, George Osborne, Chris Grayling, Michael Gove, Liam Fox — are so close to the US tobacco, anti-healthcare and anti-green lobbies we should not be surprised he’s so keen to keep his agenda hidden.

Nevertheless, he can clearly rely on Sky News to exaggerate on his behalf. Just check out that graphic and see how the Tories nine point lead over Labour is so much bigger than Labour’s twelve point lead over the Lib Dems. In the graphic above, the Tory lead over Labour is 95 pixels, while Labour’s lead over the Lib Dems is just 73 pixels.

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