An RAF execution in Syria
It takes an ingenious lawyer to devise a legal justification for the execution by RAF drone strike last week of a UK citizen in Syria suspected – but never tried or convicted – of plotting...
Author: Brian
The threat of UK disintegration: time for a federal alternative (with update 13.ix.09)
On the always stimulating Our Kingdom website (“a conversation on the future of the United Kingdom“, part of the City University‘s[1] OpenDemocracy network) there’s an interesting if somewhat academic debate in progress about the...
Nursing in the NHS: a scandal of our times
The standard of nursing in many (not all, but many) NHS hospitals is appalling. Almost everyone has experienced, or knows friends and relatives who have experienced, atrocious and negligent treatment by nurses in NHS...
On Ethiopian famine reunion, Stephen Grey and other pieces and bits
Some random jottings about current happenings: I was slightly disconcerted this morning, lying in bed half-asleep with the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on in the background, suddenly to hear my own voice for...
British decolonisation was an unrecognised success
On the admirable New York University Aidwatch blog, Professor Bill Easterly has set us an interesting teaser. He asks us to guess the source of a document about British aid. In quoting his blog...
More on al-Megrahi and Lockerbie
Today’s [London] Times rather sportingly publishes my letter, sent last week, disputing all three of a Times editorial’s reasons for condemning the decision of the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to release on compassionate...
Notes on a bleak political scene
Some disconnected thoughts on the present discontents: David Cameron’s merciless, if tiresomely and unnecessarily repetitive, dismembering of the prime minister in Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) over the latter’s obstinate refusal to admit to...
Gordon’s Constitutional Reform Programme: some snags
In his statement in the house of commons on 10 June 2009, the prime minister set out a 5-point programme of possible constitutional reform: 1. Reform of the house of lords, with 80-100 per...
Electoral ‘reform’ is back on the agenda: but do we need it?
In a major Commons statement today (10 June 2009) introducing a national debate on constitutional reform, the prime minister included the system of elections to the House of Commons in his five constitutional topics...
Attitudes to poverty in Africa: 1991 to 2009 (updated)
With the agreement of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, I have put on my website the text of a confidential despatch that I sent to the then Conservative Foreign & Commonwealth Secretary in early...