MPs’ expenses and the great national sneer
The Daily Telegraph has undeniably pulled off a great coup in getting hold of the details of MPs’ expenses claims and publishing them. It’s doing it in dribs and drabs, starting today, thus pre-empting...
Author: Brian
US and UK unemployment: part of a global human tragedy
The dry statistics of unemployment figures tend to mask the human suffering that lies behind them: men and women losing the jobs that helped to define them, in some cases with little prospect of...
Gordon Brown’s handwriting and spelling: is there a problem?
An interesting epilogue to the MacBride smear e-mails saga: Gordon Brown’s personal letter of apology to Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP defamed in the e-mail, has been published in full-size facsimile by the Daily...
Gordon Brown’s YouTube triumph
The prime minister decided last week to announce his new policy on MPs’ expenses by posting a clip on YouTube. I defy anyone to watch it through without falling about with incredulous laughter. Is...
Government defeated on Gurkha settlement: now demand justice
Joanna Lumley (pictured below with the much-decorated Gurkha veteran and holder of the Victoria Cross, Tul Bahadur Pun VC) describes on the Gurkha Justice Campaign website the campaign for a decent deal for former...
Notes on the present discontents
Some interconnected thoughts on the financial and economic crisis that have struck me in recent days: 1. The media pundits (including the lead story in the FT of 25-26 April) and opposition spokespersons have...
What public expenditure should be cut?
BBC’s Newsnight programme is appealing for viewers’ proposals on how best to cut public expenditure. Myself, I agree with the government that cutting public spending in the early stages of a massive recession would...
The financial crisis: tell the panickers it’s all relative
All the press loves a crisis: it sells papers. The Opposition loves a crisis: it attributes it to the government’s failure — sometimes correctly, sometimes not. The masochistic British in general are easily convinced...
Kosovo yet again (sorry!) With 24 Apr update
My good intention to leave the Kosovo issue alone for a while, lest I be accused of obsessing about it (which I am, and do), was torpedoed by David Clark’s stout defence of the...
The Tory MP and his Home Office spy: part 3
As yesterday’s statement by the Director of Public Prosecutions said with some emphasis, the decision not to prosecute Damian Green, the Conservative front-bench MP who for two years has been receiving official documents stolen...