Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

I just looked at this blog and realised I haven't really had much to say for myself in the last 12 months which has been longer than the 140 characters which Twitter will give you (@vauxhallvelox in case there was ever any doubt).

So what's brought me back to the blogosphere? Nothing in particular, just a sudden urge to blog on something. And here it is. The ten people I would invite to a dinner party.

1. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt - Medal of Honor winner, liberal Republican President of the USA and a particular hero of mine.
2. John Adams - 1st Vice President of the USA and 2nd President. Constitutionalist (well I am a bit of a constitutional geek). Was a toss up between Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
3. David Penhaligon - Leader of the Liberal Party that never was. "Put it on a piece of paper and put it through a letter box."
4. John Wesley - Founder of Methodism
5. Noel Chavasse - one of only three men to be awarded two Victoria Crosses.
6. General Sir Ian Hamilton - twice nominated for a VC but never awarded. I want to ask him about all the cock-ups surrounding the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915.
7. Billy Bragg - well we need some music and I agree with a lot of his politics, especially on electoral reform.
8. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - German Pastor, member of the July Plot against Hitler - executed at Flossenberg in 1945. "We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself."
9. William Ewart Gladstone - only person to be British Prime Minister four times.
10. Victor d'Hondt - if only to find out how his eponymous system actually works.

There we have it. I'm sure there are others I could have chosen and I'm sure you won't all agree with my choices but I think it would make for an interesting dinner party.

VV