Six of the Best 277

"Our starting point, the reason I became a Liberal Democrat, and the reason many people joined the Liberal Democrats, is because they want people to be free and empowered and are suspicious of the state taking on excessive authority." Mark Pack welcomes Jeremy Brown's first interview as a Home Office minister. (That's Jeremy speaking, not Mark - though I am sure Mark agrees with him.)

Neil Monnery takes apart a particularly silly argument against the reform of school examinations.

"Saudi Arabia these days is all too reminiscent of the dying decade of the Soviet Union, during which one decrepit leader succeeded another, from Leonid Brezhnev to Yuri Andropov to Konstantin Chernenko, before a younger and more open-minded Mikhail Gorbachev arrived too late to save a stagnant society and economy." Karen Elliott House looks at the future of the kingdom in the Washington Post.

This Was Leicestershire visits the Richard III dig in Leicester.

By contrast, "Nottingham has never been quite sure of its identity. Bloody Robin Hood has a lot to answer for, or at least Basil Rathbone and Alan Rickman camping it up as the Sheriff of Nottingham." Or so Jones the Planner says.

LDN Photo Journal snaps the Crystal Palace dinosaurs, which will be familiar to those who share my affection for the film "Our Mother's House".