Britain Today today is brought to you by English Beat's 'Save it For Later', and a sad kitten who has eaten too many biscuits. 

From the nation that brought you colonialism comes more immigration hypocrisy, this time with the hysteria preventing artistic exchange.  Daft as a paintbrush.  On a somewhat similar topic, Anton Vowl writes intelligently on 'white' Britishness (and rumours of demise). 

Under daft as a brush, see also: Lord Young, who has resigned after suggesting that during the 'so-called recession' we've 'never had it so good'.  The most interesting comment, of course, has been over whether what he's gone and said might be true: tosh, says the Spectator, though, wait a second, says Stumbling and Mumbling.  Meanwhile, Dave Osler at Labour Uncut notes that Lord Young (and his well-off ilk) have always had it better. 

More big news came last week of course in the looming spectre of the royal wedding.  My thoughts about Prince William don't get much far beyond wondering whether he is actually the most boring man in Britain, or whether an accountant from Milton Keynes might just pip him to the title.  For sheer entertainment value I'd rather see Fergie and Andrew try it all over again (after re-uniting on I'm a Celebrity, of course).  Anyway, here's Paul Richards on the wedding, the monarchy, and the Labour party's relationship to it all. 

The Indy reviews Jesse Norman's The Big Society and suggests it might be the clearest explanation yet (but that isn't necessarily saying much!). More book reviews over at Open Kingdom, where two books about why the Tories didn't gain a majority at the election are put head-to-head. 

Since the Coalition took power, Britain has become one of the 'most data-friendly countries', according to Datablog which wonders whether government spending data can really change the world?

Here's the full text of Nick Clegg's recent political reform speech.  Worth reading, I think.  In more Clegg coverage, William Davies asks 'who is the fairest of them all?'. 

The big palaver has been Demo2010, the student protest march in London which turned ugly.  The threat of violence is often inherent in a protest, but it often seems doubly so in a student one.  This was of course not violence igniting throughout the crowd, but the usual "yeah, that showed 'em" brigade who excel at ruining it for everybody else.  (On HE reform itself, see this article about Mandelson, Labour and the Browne report.) 

The shouting-and-placard-fest marks David Cameron's 6 month anniversary as PM.  He'll be out for his tea, then.  ToryDiary's Paul Goodman reflects on 6 months of 'Dave'.

North-South divide watch: now then, here's summat on that.  (I am reminded to review Helen Jewell's book on this.)  

An interesting post by Aaron Peters at LFF on 'anxious aspiration'. Peters' solution is a Labour politics of 'familiar fairness in unfamiliar times'.  Yet, elsewhere, Mark Vernon writes that 'a rigorously fair [society], would, actually, be an inhuman one.'

Phil Woolas has gone, but questions of racism and political campaigning remain.  Two responses from the Labour blogs: Dan Hodges suggests 'Phil Woolas is our fall guy' and Jon Lansman responds that 'this isn't a working class racism problem, this is a Labour problem'. 

Finally, stepping away from the politics!  On the heritage front, No Tech Magazine have sniffed out a bunch of free online pamphlets about things like tool care, hedging, and dry stone walling. Also, British Waterways are planning big work on the canal network.  Someone remind me to try and see the lock gate workshop at Stanley Ferry!