One Ann Kittenplan sees some sort of equivalence between ‘tax avoidance’ and benefit fraud: see her comments on my post about the moral vacuum that is Graham Norton, including: I do have a problem with unfairness… a) what are the relative costs to the economy of benefit fraud, tax avoidance, […]
Back in writing business after a few days of running around trying to earn some money. Here is a piece I have written for the Telegraph Blogs on the moral case for the Syrians doing what it takes to defeat the regime oppressing them: One of the iconic principles of the […]
Leading UK journalist Angus Roxburgh has written a book about Putin and Putinism, drawing on his extensive experience in Russia (including a stint as a media adviser to the Putin team): The book is good in revealing all sorts of fascinating stories about the Putin period. My favourite is the […]
Here is our old friend Robert Fisk showing what a great war reporter he is: I’ve been increasingly discomfited by all these reporters in their blue space-suits, standing among and interviewing the victims of war, who have no such protection. I know that insurers insist correspondents and crews wear this […]
Remember my piece almost a year ago describing smart diplomatic options for Doing Something about Libya? Here it is, and none the worse for wear: You draw a noisy stick across the bars of the FCO/State Department cage to rouse the bemused and sulky inmates, and demand ideas for action. What might they […]
Just spotted that funny things have been happening to my attempts to make blog postings – my Syria piece appeared three times. Two now deleted. Apologies. It all stems from trying to get things here posted nicely AND sent to Twitter at the same time. #fail
Craig Murray and I have a fleeting moment of agreement, rather like ships sailing in opposite directions who pass and exchange friendly waves. He commented on my earlier piece about Libya and MI6, responding to another reader: Your second point rests on the premiss that if government ministers approved something, […]
A reader kindly points me in the direction of a blog written by Denis MacEoin which aims to portray Israel in a fair (and therefore favourable) light. Not least in this powerful letter he has sent to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, which offers the worthy prelate some food […]
As you all know, I happen to be a fan of what the Blair government and MI6 did to help bring Gaddafi back towards what passes for the mainstream of civilisation in that part of the world, by helping negotiate the end of his elaborate MWD programmes in return for […]
Famous Australian philosopher Tim Blair has coined a trenchant saying which is now known round the world as Blair’s Law. It illuminates a depressing but seemingly inexorable tendency: "… the ongoing process by which the world’s multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force" Almost anything said by the Western world’s […]
