Danny Finkelstein argues well in the Times that politics are getting more fragmented and less controlled: In his book The Long Tail Chris Anderson points out how the market for, say, books has in the past been constrained by the shop shelf space available to display. Online shopping has abolished this […]
Craig Murray has an interesting post trying to make the case that receiving information extracted or suspected to be extracted via torture is the same as receiving child pornography. I have posted this comment which tries to look at the key dilemma: what is the best way for democracies to […]
The age-old problem for Russia is, how to run a territory sprawling over some eleven time zones? This means Moscow catching the attention of regional leaders thousands of miles away – and keeping them in reasonable line. Over the years a Firm Hand has been seen as the best method. […]
Remember the Really Perfect Crime? Thus: The Really Perfect Crime is not defined by the fact that no-one knows who did it. Instead it is to commit a truly atrocious deed and then arrange things so that we all know exactly who did it – but prefer to look away from the victim, to […]
The EU has not sat idly by as British democracy reels under the weight of its own loathsome misbehaviour. On 7 May the EU launched its new Eastern Partnership – an attempt to set up a new sort of structured relationship with the obviously (more or less) ‘European’ parts of the […]
Back in October in reviewing Craig Murray’s book I discussed the problem of the insecure communications he had: Basically (as I understand it), he did not have a Confidential email system. He did have an Unclassified FCO email system (which in Tashkent’s circumstances could not have been regarded as secure) […]
So on towards the policy core of Craig Murray’s Murder in Samarkand – his policy disagreement with the FCO over torture and the War on Terror. In Chapter 9 Craig describes an EU human rights Ambassadorial demarche. I have analysed the genre here. His description bears out my earlier point, […]
Craig Murray has graciously has accepted my proposal of a public debate – venue and format to be agreed. He also rightly has pointed out that I never finished reviewing his book Murder in Samarkand including the key passages about his head-on collision with the FCO over torture and the War on […]
My posting below on Torture has prompted various comments, some of which have come from people arriving here via my former FCO colleague Craig Murray’s site and who support strongly his insistence that Torture Does Not Work. See for example Moo: I hope you’re not seriously suggesting two things: that torture works and […]
Poland, a serious country, is looking hard at treating Leftist and Rightist extremism equally, mulling over a new draft law which would ban the production of fascist and totalitarian propaganda so that it includes clothing and anything else that could carry an image related to an authoritarian system. So, farewell then, t-shirts glorifying […]
