{"id":63780,"date":"2026-06-07T21:09:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/07\/confessions-of-a-political-liveblogger-i-enjoy-it-professionally-but-as-a-citizen-you-can-think-the-countrys-going-to-hell-in-a-handcart-2\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T21:09:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:09:54","slug":"confessions-of-a-political-liveblogger-i-enjoy-it-professionally-but-as-a-citizen-you-can-think-the-countrys-going-to-hell-in-a-handcart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/07\/confessions-of-a-political-liveblogger-i-enjoy-it-professionally-but-as-a-citizen-you-can-think-the-countrys-going-to-hell-in-a-handcart-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a political liveblogger: \u2018I enjoy it professionally \u2013 but, as a citizen, you can think the country\u2019s going to hell in a handcart\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Sparrow has been writing the Guardian\u2019s daily political live blog for more than 15 years. How does he cope with the relentless psychodrama of British politics?<\/p>\n

On Monday at 14:12 BST, the Guardian\u2019s Andrew Sparrow posted two sentences announcing one of the largest government document dumps in British political history:<\/p>\n

The Cabinet Office has published the Mandelson files.
\n They are in three volumes.<\/em><\/p>\n

Many people despair at the quality of governance in Britain at the moment, but in one respect we are living through a golden age; if you are interested in contemporary history, and learning about what actually happens at the heart of government, then you can now \u2013 sometimes \u2013 access the sort of information never available before \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Last month a minister compared<\/a> [the documents being published today] to the evidence released as part of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. But the Chilcot inquiry took place in the era before WhatsApp, and it was publishing secret memos \u2013 intended for circulation within Whitehall. WhatsApp messages are a lot more personal; reading them is like being able to eavesdrop on a private conversation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Sparrow has been writing the Guardian\u2019s daily political live blog for more than 15 years. How does he cope with the relentless psychodrama of British politics? On Monday at 14:12 BST, the Guardian\u2019s Andrew Sparrow posted two sentences announcing one of the largest government document dumps in British political history: The Cabinet Office has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flwnet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}