The British government are not planning on holding an enquiry into their possible complicity in overseas torture: Kim Howells, Labour chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee which scrutinises the secret services, said the issue of UK complicity in torture had been "clarified as far as it can be on […]
Part of the problem of modern government is that many social schemes are funded on Ponzi-scheme principles – the whole thing is paid for today on the assumption that there will be enough people tomorrow to keep chipping in too. And the day after. But as we know, demographic forecasts […]
Was HM Government ‘complicit’ in torture? No, says MI6 head Sir John Scarlett. A slightly more nuanced line comes from Ministers David Miliband and Alan Johnson: Yet intelligence from overseas is critical to our success in stopping terrorism. All the most serious plots and attacks in the UK in this […]
A well-turned piece by Carne Ross (Independent Diplomat) taking up the release by North Korea of the two American journalists on the problems facing diplomats as and when hostages are grabbed: Even Bill Clinton’s harshest critic should celebrate this rescue as triumphant and humane. But as the women’s families breathe […]
This Washington Post article makes a deft case for the claim that the anonymous Joker/Socialist posters of President Obama are really racist: Although Ledger was white, and the Joker is white, this equation of the wounded and the wounding mirrors basic racial typology in America. Urban blacks — the thinking […]
For the actual swearing-in ceremony of so-called President Ahmadinejad in Iran, HM Ambassador Simon Gass brusquely elbowed his deputy Patrick Davies out of the way and attended to represent The Queen. To the displeasure of The Times: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that it had dispatched the ambassador because the […]
My former Deputy from the Embassy in Warsaw, the redoubtable Patrick Davies, opted for a sleepy posting in Tehran after all the turmoil of Polish politics. Imagine his surprise to find himself splashed in the Times – for attending a ceremony at which Iran’s spiritual leader officially endorsed President Ahmadinejad. […]
Update: welcome Iain Dale readers. Loftily principled Edward McMillan-Scott (MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber) weighs in on the Kaminski saga: On July 14, in Strasbourg, I stood and won against a Polish MEP, Michal Kaminski, for the post of Vice-President of the European Parliament, because he symbolised the rise […]
Over in the USA a lot of noise is being generated by people speculating that President Obama is not for various technical reasons an American citizen and so should not have been allowed to run for President. Yawn. But there may be other reasons for wanting to see all the […]
I have been struggling with my paper on military/civilian cooperation in ‘fragile states’. It is easy to think that the whole business is hopeless. It is just not possible in the short time-scales we all can cope with these days to work out how best to achieve Stability while maintaining Legitimacy. Not […]
