The United States’ policy towards Cuba has failed. So says US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And she should be in a good position to know, as her husband presided over this failing policy for eight years. Meanwhile equally ailing and failing Fidel Castro wants the USA to go even […]
Anne Applebaum says that the Obama/Clinton reset button for US/Russia relations is not working: Anyone who doubts the truth of this need only look at remarks Lavrov himself made last weekend in Brussels … The transcript of his remarks, and those of other Russians attending the same conference, do not capture […]
A reader sends me this striking quote from Coningsby by Benjamin Disraeli, spoken in the novel by Sindonia, the brilliant Sephardic Jew: I always look upon Diplomatists as the Hebrews of politics; without country, political creeds, popular convictions, that strong reality of existence which pervades the career of an eminent citizen […]
Here is Britblog Roundup 213. Which leads us to Chris Dillow (Stumbling and Mumbling: An extremist, not a fanatic): A key part of the task for the post-New Labour party must be to reshape the electorate, creating client groups loyal to it. In this context, redistribution becomes more important – […]
This story of the ghastly township violence in South Africa against real or suspected lesbians – ‘corrective rape’ – has drawn a lot of attention. The ferocity and brutality of Simelane’s murder sent shockwaves through Kwa Thema, where she was much known and loved for bringing sports fame to the […]
The point about Political Correctness is that it is an attempt to define an ideological and then physical control agenda solely on progressive/leftist terms. It matters less what those terms are than that no-one else other than in-crowd progressives/leftists gets to have a say in defining them. Often the issue is […]
Soaring sales of Ayn Rand’s books in the USA (Atlas Shrugged is high at number 30 in the Amazon bestsellers list) are rattling supposedly progressive thinkers over here. See eg the Guardian desperately falling back on those two honest thinkers Noam Chomsky and Slavoj Zizek to try to put people […]
Here is an eloquent article in Standpoint about claims that back in 1950 a youthful Milan Kundera gave a statement to the communist regime which caused others opposed to it immense suffering. The article has prompted some revealing comments. Here is one asserting that ‘context is everything: … It is further […]
Remember the fuss about the oppressive and unworkable FCO rules on what former diplomats might or might not say in public? We now have new rules! And they are actually sensible. They put the emphasis on intelligent people using their Judgement: The FCO relies on former officials to exercise their […]
Who is responsible for the current financial turmoil? Anyone? Here is William Rees-Mogg using a sharp scalpel to cut through to what he says is the Prime Minister’s personal responsibility for a serious misjudgement on Lloyds/HBOS, with massive ramifications down the road for us all: It is bad enough that Gordon Brown […]
