My Life’s Work
Around two years ago, I co-founded a technology company called Suffrago. I was super confident then that, if we got it right, this could become my life’s work. The idea [...]
What is Opinionomics
(Photos from the Suffrago-sponsored Conversation Cabinet podcast - main image of Kwasi Kwarteng) Every day, millions – perhaps billions – of opinions are expressed. They appear in elections, opinion polls, [...]
Shame on our Estate Agents: The “favoured South Side” of Harrogate slander
I should really name names, but I won’t. For now. I want to challenge one of the laziest and most damaging habits in Harrogate. Ever since my wife and I [...]
Empty shops, empty thinking
Each time I’m sitting at the traffic lights at the bottom of Parliament Street, with the former Rhodes Wood shop standing empty on one side and the still-empty Viper Rooms [...]
We need to talk about memorials
This opinion piece was published in The Stray Ferret on 10 June. I want to discuss the issue of public memorials and their proliferation in our area. By memorials, I’m [...]
From Essex to Harrogate – and not going back
(Published in the Stray Ferret on 16 April 2026) Sipping what must be Harrogate’s smallest Americano in The Everyman the other week, I became aware that a group of teenagers [...]
A Tale of Two Cinemas: Odeon vs Everyman
Published in The Stray Ferret here: https://thestrayferret.co.uk/news/latest/a-tale-of-two-harrogate-cinemas-odeon-vs-everyman If Orange Wednesdays were still a thing, we all know where they’d happen. The Odeon. Not the Everyman. That was peak cinema for [...]
Op-Ed: in the Stray Ferret
Geopolitics comes to Harrogate (Published on 11 January 2026: https://thestrayferret.co.uk/news/latest/opinion-what-would-a-nato-wobble-mean-for-the-harrogate-district) May we live in interesting times. That old Chinese curse — or blessing — feels uncomfortably relevant, given recent [...]
Keir Starmer isn’t doomed. He’s just stuck in lawyer-mode.
(The below was written for The Yorkshire Post; perhaps they will print; perhaps they won’t) Merry Christmas, Sir Keir Starmer KC. As a former solicitor, I’m used to instructing [...]
