19/11/2010

VIV GROSKOP is a journalist who writes for The Guardian, The Observer, The London Evening Standard and Russian Vogue. On her Twitter page, she describes herself as "Writer. Mother. Feminist. Russophile. Very very bad stand-up comedian." She has recently performed in shows with Jo Brand and Sandi Toksvig. In this week’s Prospect Magazine she writes that it's time to end the dominance of English. We should all try out a new language: “I have a soft spot for Pictish, which died out in the early middle ages and is described by philologists as fiendishly complicated. It contains brilliant words like ahehhttann and hccvvevv. Sadly no one knows what they mean, making it the perfect language for people who don’t like talking to anyone." After studying Russian and French at Cambridge University during which she discovered her own family came from Russia, she started her career at Esquire magazine at the age of 22 before moving to The Express. Her proudest career moment was when she interviewed the survivors of the Beslan siege; her lowest moment was when she was asked to try six-foot hair extensions which promised to make her "look like Gwyneth Paltrow". It was unsuccessful, she says, and she "resembled a transvestite mermaid instead".

SIMON HEFFER is Associate Editor of The Daily Telegraph and is continuing to write columns for the paper whilst taking a year’s sabbatical, after being asked to do post-doctoral work by Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His columns, according to The Telegraph, address “the core concerns of middle England with savage gusto, covering politics, education, crime, immigration and our national institutions.” Writing about Ireland’s financial state this week, he was not sympathetic: “Ireland made mistakes. It was awash with money, some of it bribes from the EU for its compliance with the neo-sovietising policy of that institution, much of it the equivalent of a South Sea bubble engaged in by reckless and greedy bankers who were capitalising on low interest rates that reflected a general European economy, not a specific Irish one. Ireland lost a sense of reality and proportion. It has now reached the station exit and spotted the ticket collector: but it can't find a ticket." Formerly a medical journalist, he has been a columnist for the Daily Mail, and a contributor to The Spectator. His books include Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII, and A Century of County Cricket.

JOHN DENHAM is Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, a post he held in Government for two years, from 2007 to 2009. For the final year of Labour’s term he was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. He kept his Southampton Itchen seat at the election with a majority of 192. One of the few Labour MPs left in the south, he has called for southern England in time to be able to keep more of its own revenues and disclosed that, shortly before the election, Downing Street vetoed his plans for state funding for an official St George's Day celebration of Englishness. No 10 told Denham it feared there would be a counter-reaction in Scotland. He had served as Home Office minister in Tony Blair’s government but resigned in 2003 in protest at the decision to go to war with Iraq. In his period on the backbenches, he chaired the influential Home Affairs Select Committee at Westminster. During the passing of legislation on tuition fees, his public defence of them led to his life membership of the Southampton students’ union being revoked.

PHILIP HAMMOND is Secretary of State for Transport. Recently he announced the closure of the M4 bus lane and said that said he would be allowing airlines to look at ways of "easing the passenger experience" and making changes to their security requirements. Soon after making those remarks he was announcing tighter security on air freight after the discovery of bombs on cargo planes. Until the election he was Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, a job he was widely expected to keep in government and he was once rumoured to be a possible replacement for George Osborne. An Oxford graduate, before joining parliament he had a business career as a director for a range of manufacturing, oil and gas companies. He has also worked for the World Bank in Latin America and Africa. Born in Essex, he has been MP for Runnymede and Weybridge since 1997.