Coming straight to Cheltenham from Labour’s conference in Liverpool, Wes Streeting joined me at Cheltenham Town Hall on Thursday afternoon to discuss his ‘memoir of growing up and getting on’. Wes...

At Cheltenham interviewing Polly Toynbee about her fascinating new book, ‘An Uneasy Inheritance’.  In part a biography of her distinguished antecedents, part memoir, part social history with a...

After more than twenty years, Hull’s memorial to lost trawlermen has finally been opened on St Andrew’s Quay. I was honoured to be asked to speak at the opening ceremony on Sunday, September 24th....

I’m writing this in Crete, drinking a toast to you the reader from a taverna on the shores of the Libyan sea. We’re in Agia Gallini, where ‘One of Our Ministers is Missing’ is partially set. Indeed,...

On Monday I had the honour of being installed as Chancellor of the University of Hull.  Over the following four days I presented 2418 degrees to students in a range of departments including the Hull...

It’s a very rare occasion when I have to wear a tie these days. In Parliament it was a requirement. A gentleman (the loose description for male MPs) could not enter the chamber of the House of...

On a glorious summer Saturday we drive from our part of East Yorkshire to Scarborough in North Yorkshire for one of our very favourite book festivals. Books By The Beach is always such fun because...