One of the many Stalinist Very Big Lies still echoing on down the ages is that there can be no attempted equivalence between Nazism and Communism, since Nazism (as Extreme Rightism) was an explicitly racist ideology whereas Communism (as part of general Leftism generally) utterly repudiated racism. This is not a dead […]
(Transparency Note: I met Jonah on a cruise back in 2005 and enjoyed his ideas and company. But we were not lovers.) What to make of Jonah Goldberg’s remarkable (if long) new book Liberal Fascism? Plenty. His basic thesis boils down to three propositions: First, non-trivial parts of today’s Western Leftist/progressive style and […]
One of the great cliches about Cuba is that despite all its human rights and other abuses it sure has a fine free health service which the rest of us should admire. Really? One of the ways in which any good health service keeps effective surely must be ready access to […]
The electoral (mis)fortunes of Gennady Zyuganov, leader of Russia’s largest Communist Party, continue to be of some modest interest. He managed to position himself as the main opposition to President Yeltsin back in 1996, but did not win. He fizzled in 2000 and has fizzled again now. Maybe he should […]
As the results come in it is clear that Vladimir Zhirinovsky has failed yet again to become Russian President. He surged to prominence and even some significance in 1993 when his Liberal-Democratic Party won some 23% of the popular vote in the Duma elections. Before these important elections the […]
Russia chooses a new President tomorrow, 2 March. Without OSCE observers. When did Russia’s leadership start to tip away from seeing European Democracy as the Solution, towards seeing it as a Problem? Maybe around 6 May 1996. In the UK it was a Bank Holiday Monday morning; we expected a normal working […]
Nazism or Communism? Which was ‘worse’? And why? I sent the FCO some thoughts on this subject when I was HM Ambassador in Warsaw. I pointed out that today’s Europe would look and feel rather different if Hitler was lying embalmed in Berlin just as Lenin lies creepily in Moscow. […]
How to assess the life and works of Fidel Castro? CNN has the line. Castro was a not too bad fellow who did good things for ‘social reform’ in Cuba and who was praised in some circles for standing up to the United States. Oh, and he was criticized for […]
The Guardian this morning has a piece on the chilly state of what it calls ‘Anglo-Russian’ relations. The ‘Anglo’ word rings strange in this context these days. It appears to make England the focus of such problems while having nothing to say about the surely similar and weighty responsibilities of Scotland, Wales and […]
There are three problems in Diplomacy. What you think about a problem. What you should do about it. And what you can do about it. So what the British Government think about the continuing Russian official pressure on the British Council is clear enough. But some commentators are saying that […]
