Growing up in wartime Brixton
My wife’s account of her experiences growing up in wartime Brixton, here, explain why the war was a defining experience for people of her and my generation [More >>>]
Author: Brian
More howlers for Christmas
‘Tis the season to be illiterate, apparently, as well as jolly. The following howlers are nearly all taken from the letters page of a single issue of the Guardian [More >>>]
X is for X Factor
The X Factor amateur talent programme has been won by a pleasant young woman called Leona (without the or), accused by some of not really being an amateur, and singing in a style that doesn’t much appeal to this elderly square. But she’s already a multi-millionaire as a result of her triumph, so why should she care what I think? [More >>>]
Can you keep a secret? Parliament vs. the Executive
The classified (confidential or secret) text of Carne Ross’s evidence on Iraq to the Butler Inquiry has been published by the Independent but also first on the website of the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. This raises serious questions about the ability and desirability of government to protect its sensitive internal information from publication and the public’s ‘right to know’, issues raised earlier over FCO attempts to stop Craig Murray publishing classified documents on the Web and in his book [More >>>]
Saudi Arabia, BAE and the Serious Fraud Office: the cover-up
The government’s obstruction, on nakedly political grounds, of a criminal investigation of possible bribery in the context of the huge al-Yamamah arms contracts with Saudi Arabia is being explained with multiple mutual contradictions and may be in breach of UK international obligations. I offer an alternative but unfortunately improbable scenario [More >>>]
Carne Ross: Iraq, WMD, sanctions and the war (yes, again)
The evidence given by Carne Ross to the Butler Inquiry on the use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war was 'classified' and accordingly not published in the Inquiry's report. Ross was...
Cartoon history of the Labour Party
Alan Mumford’s cartoon history of the Labour Party (£19.99 from [email protected]), by a cartoon and contemporary political history pundit and an old friend, is a must-buy, and makes a perfect Christmas present — no, nothing in it financially for me [More >>>]
Denying Holocaust deniers a voice
President Ahmadinejad’s conference of Holocaust deniers is an objectionable event, but there’s no justification either for German and Austrian laws under which a Holocaust denier can be (and in the case of David Irving, has been) sent to prison for years for expressing their absurd if unpalatable views [More >>>]
About Australia
Australia is the second-best country for the good life, and Australians the best people to have around in a tight corner. Useful column on this by Engel in today’s FT. Aussie-Pom relations have an edge, but in the end we’re mates [More >>>]
Who could forget Nye, naked in the conference chamber? The Guardian
We older Old Labour folk were more amused than saddened by this, in today’s Guardian Corrections column: “In a front-page sketch, Remember Nye Bevan’s warning …, December 5, we mistook, both in the heading and text, Mr Bevan (1897-1960) for his contemporary Ernest Bevin (1884-1951). It was Ernest Bevin, when foreign secretary, who pleaded with colleagues not to send him naked to the conference table.” [More >>>]