Other BBC3 shows which have found new homes since the corporation announced its channel closure plans last year include Russell Howard’s Good News and Jack Whitehall’s Backchat which both moved to BBC2. Enoch Powell was Tory MP for the nearby seat of Wolverhampton South West at the time of his infamous “rivers of blood” speech in 1968. The speech came back to haunt the Tories in 2007 when the party was forced to deselect Nigel Hastilow as its candidate in Halesowen and Rowley Regis, which neighbours Dudley North, after he declared that Powell had been “right”.
Conservative campaign headquarters had hoped to bury those memories for good after Amin was selected to fight Dudley North, which is sixth on the party’s target list of Labour-held marginal seats. Opinion polls, in which Labour and the Tories periodically swap small leads, suggest it would have been a tall order for Amin to overturn the Labour majority of 649 clocked up in 2010 by Ian Austin. But the Tories hoped that placing such a high-profile candidate would, at the very least, show they were serious about ensuring the party became more diverse.
Conservative hopes lie in tatters. Party sources indicated that the secret recordings of Amin’s discussions, published by the Mail on Sunday, with the English Defence League are so damning that he is on course to be expelled from the party. The Tories fear they may have a fatal setback in their attempts to win Dudley North, which is the sort of seat David Cameron needs to win if he is to secure an overall parliamentary majority.
The behaviour of Amin is likely to trigger a rethink at campaign headquarters about scrutiny of the candidate for a seat central to the 40/40 campaign, which focuses millions of pounds on the 40 most marginal seats held by the Tories and the 40 most marginal seats it hopes to gain.
ITV’s director of digital channels and acquisitions, Angela Jain said: “Family Guy is satire with nothing off limits – it’s like spending half an hour with the funniest guy in the room and watching him freestyle.
“It is a joy to announce to all Seth MacFarlane fans that the new series premiere will be on ITV2 from this autumn. The acquisition of these brilliant and distinctive shows is totally in line with the strategy of strengthening ITV2 as a comprehensive entertainment channel destination for young viewers.”
The Folio was born out of frustration at perceived weaknesses of the Man Booker prize and anger at what was described as the “dumbed down” shortlist of 2011. One particular complaint was that it continued to bar US writers, an issue subsequently addressed by opening up the Booker to all novelists writing in the English language.
In a crowded literary prize calendar the Folio has tried hard to show its distinctiveness. It is, for example, a prize decided by writers and critics only, drawn by lots from an academy of 234 people who are “immersed in the world of books”. Unusually, it also lists the books that did not make the shortlist by revealing the 80 titles that were read by judges.
The other shortlisted candidates were 10:04 by Ben Lerner, All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews, Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill, Dust by Adhiambo Owuor, Nora Webster by Colm Toibin, and Outline by Rachel Cusk.
The judging panel chaired by Fiennes consisted of Observer writer Rachel Cooke and writers Mohsin Hamid, AM Homes, and Deborah Levy. But it is difficult to draw wider lessons for the Conservative party from the secret recordings which seem to show an individual candidate vastly over-reaching himself. Tory sources suggested he had a rather inflated – and wholly unrealistic – view of his status as a parliamentary candidate when he explained his decision to negotiate with the EDL by way of reference to his service in Afghanistan.
In a statement issued in response to the Mail on Sunday report, Amin said: “Using my experience as a strategist in Afghanistan negotiating between pro-Taliban militias and the US military, I decided to use this experience to increase community cohesion here in my own country between the EDL and Muslim communities.” A Tory source dismissed this statement, telling the BBC: “Dudley isn’t Kandahar.”
Within the recordings, however, is an exchange that should give pause for thought. Amin appeared to tell the former EDL leader Tommy Robinson over a Pizza Express meal last Thursday that he would be prepared to pay for canvassers because he needs “two white working class lads” to tell voters that, if they support the army, they should vote for him.
He reportedly told Robinson: “I’ll put it to you bluntly. I need two white working class lads to go round those area to say to people: ‘You support the Army, if you support the troops then vote for this guy’. That’s what I need.”
Critics lining up to tear strips off Amin might like to bear in mind that he appeared to feel nervous about his ability, as a Muslim former army officer, to appeal to white working class voters in a seat where Ukip is making inroads. Perhaps race relations in the West Midlands have not advanced as quickly as mainstream parties had hoped.
“But the Tories and Lib Dems raised it within weeks of the last general election – despite David Cameron telling the British people a few days before the election that he had ‘no plans’ to do so and despite the promises of Nick Clegg.”
Balls has a strong record of opposing rises in VAT on the grounds that it hits the poor harder because they spend a greater proportion of their income on items subject to the tax. parliament authorised funds to last until late summer by passing a “vote on account”, but the money needed for the rest of the year needs to be approved by parliament in the next financial year, so after 1 April.
Parliament usually passes the “main supply estimates” in July, but if a government is not formed by then it would be unable to do so.
According to the document, the vote on account, passed in February, provides “resources, capital and cash to allow existing services to continue operating during the early months of the coming financial year”.
“The definition of ‘existing services’ is a service for which parliament has given its approval before 31 March, ie in the current year.” address the question most frequently asked by its 4.2 million members and 20 million paying visitors: “so, when is it open?” The answer, in a radical shift in policy for hundreds of historic properties, parks and gardens, will be 364 days of the year.
Even during opening months, the properties have been closed on one or two days of the week. From early November until late spring, they hibernate, blinds drawn, lights out, furniture and statues swaddled in cloth covers.