Opinion / British Politics and Society

Carousel Fraud: An Appeal to the Blogosphere

My recent posting on Carousel Fraud and Climate Change was picked up by Devil’s Kitchen and led to a flurry of hits.   So now for dessert, the Blogosphere’s first CFRU: Carousel Fraud Round-up.   Remind us, how does it all work again?   Crooks set up an arrangement for […]

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From The Sharpeville Six To Kosovo

Remember the Sharpeville Six? They were six South Africans convicted of the murder of a local township leader who ‘collaborated’ with the apartheid regime. Their case became an international symbol of the anti-apartheid struggle. What happened? In early September 1984 in Sharpeville (south of Johannesburg) township protesters angered at rent rises converged upon the house of […]

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Questions And (Too Many) Answers

A wonder of our Age is the way in which smart people can gather speedily round a good piece of writing out there on the Web and chew it over, to and fro, looking at the issues it raises and how they link to other issues. When it works well, […]

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Sarkozy And Iran: By Some Chance Related?

The Times leader on President Sarkozy’s insistence that the ‘European’ economic model must now prevail over the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model: This is economically illiterate populism. No policymaker in the English-speaking economies believes in totally unconstrained and unregulated capitalism. You need to go to some fairly obscure corners to find anyone at […]

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Serbia/Kosovo At ICJ

The Advisory Opinion hearings at the International Court of Justice on the Serbia/Kosovo question have started. The curious thing about this one is the actual question which the ICJ is tasked by the UN General Assembly to address: Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government […]

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The Chilcot Inquiry: That Physics-Free EU Multiplier

Physics-free David Miliband: The idea that the UK can maintain its influence in Beijing or Washington or Delhi or Moscow if we marginalise ourselves in Europe is frankly fanciful.  In fact I would say the opposite; through leadership in Europe we augment our bilateral ties with other countries. Alone, we […]

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BBRU 250: Adapt Or Mitigate Edition

Let’s start at the top, with Climategate. A great mass of original material is hacked or leaked from a key UK Climate Research Unit.   Those who want urgent action of different sorts on climate change are exhibiting unease, insisting that it is all a fuss about next to nothing […]

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Healthcare Stories

Prompted by the story of how (not) to reward effort, a reader tells us another story: This is a truly massive failure called the American healthcare system. Dreamt up by laissez faire Capitalists over sixty years ago, the American healthcare system costs twice as much as the NHS whilst leaving […]

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Dominic Raab MP (To Be)

Welcome Iain Dale readers My former FCO lawyer colleague Dominic Raab has stormed home to win the Conservative Party nomination for the Esher and Walton parliamentary constituency, after securing a strong win in the constituency’s ‘open primary’ when any member of the public could come along to choose a candidate […]

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D Aaronovitch v David Cameron

David Aaronovitch (who like David Miliband comes from a family steeped in High Marxism) has a vigorous go at David Cameron this morning over the Jedwabne/Kaminski issue. There are already three David’s in this story. But what to do? Co zrobi

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