Over at @TelegraphBlogs my new piece on the government’s footling refusal to share a full breakdown of civil servants’ travel expenses: The Coalition will soon be publishing travel expenses for Ministers and senior civil servants, a good step forward. I can just about grudgingly accept that it makes sense not […]
Another day, another attempt to broker a deal betwen Israel and the Palestine Authority, this time with John Kerry leading the charge. Who knows, maybe this one will get somewhere. Perhaps the generalised shambles in Egypt and across the Middle East will create a sense that if there has to […]
Wow. Here is a really sharp dissecting by Martin Continetti of President Obama’s recent conversation with the New York Times: My favorite moment is when the president mentions someone he’s been talking to. “I had a conversation a couple of weeks back with Robert Putnam,” Obama says, “who I’ve known […]
A busy day, with Sky TV coming round to the house to interview me about the draft speech by The Queen on the eve of 1980s nuclear war, except that it wasn’t. Here is piece I have written for the Telegraph on the clueless draft speech supposedly by HM The […]
What to make of the Bradley Manning verdict – guilty on multiple counts? My first reaction is “good!”. Here is a silly if not mentally ill squirt who abused a position of trust and leaked vast quantities of American classified material, most of it things he could not even have […]
This wonderful piece by Helena Morrissey is potentially a national debate-shifter. It says more or less everything I think about why the European Union is a fading force (my emphasis): My personal experiences of dealing with the EU on issues I am involved with have served to reinforce my view […]
Here is another article fretting feebly over the fact that the European Union is ‘punching below its weight’ in global negotiations: Although the EU is a minority bloc within the General Assembly and Human Rights Council (HRC), its power resources could in principle be wielded to help the EU gain […]
Here is my latest Commentator piece about what the Zimmerman case tells us about self-defence laws here in the UK. Namely nothing at all: A desperate piece in the New Statesman by Jacob Turner strains every sinew to link the Zimmerman case in the USA with the UK’s self-defence laws: […]
Alas Canon Timothy Russ has died. Here is a fine obituary telling us about his fascinating life and deep historical interests: The question remained, however: who was the painter? The more Russ looked at the canvas, the more he became sure he knew the answer. It was not the “Lady” […]
My latest piece at Punditwire: In short, President Obama’s general observations about how the United States might tackle lingering discrimination and prejudice made sense. But the fact that he linked his remarks in such a personal way to the Trayvon Martin case – of all possible cases out there across […]
