Category: Miscellaneous

Exactly what are Values of the Two-Year College.

Superior schooling within this nation is speedily turning into a need within the venture group as a substitute for an extravagance. With the previous the people today who had a secondary faculty teaching continue...

Waiting for Armageddon: an exchange of gloomy views

My old friend Robin Fairlie and I summoned up enough vanity to imagine that our recent exchange of emails about the state of the world might be of wider interest. So here it is. Dear...

Does Security Council Resolution 2249 (2015) of 20 November make bombing ISIL in Syria legal? Yes!

The UN Security Council’s resolution on ISIL (ISIS, Da’esh), adopted unanimously on 20 November, has received much less UK media attention and analysis than it deserves. In my view it has transformed the situation...

Notice to contributors of comments and subscribers to Ephems blog

This is a message to contributors of comments and Ephems subscribers with the initials RS, JM and PM:  you have all registered to receive a notification of any new comment posted on a particular...

The Observer should not be shocked by MI5’s use of paid informers

On 20 September 2015 the Observer newspaper published a front page report expressing pained surprise at the revelation that the UK Security Service has been paying informers “to spy” on Muslims suspected of involvement...

Notes on October 2013

The savage rise in household energy prices must be a worry for almost everyone in Britain, apart from the super-rich.  Ed Miliband has clearly scored a popular bull’s-eye with his promise to freeze them...

Julian Assange: a modest suggestion and some clarifications

Today’s Guardian (20 Aug 2012) publishes a letter from me dismissing one suggested solution for Mr Assange’s future and proposing another: Letters: Diplomatic dilemmas and Julian Assange Your editorial (17 August) states categorically that...

Question: West Lothian? Answer: A Federal United Kingdom

[Note:  This is the text of a submission to the McKay Commission on how the House of Commons might deal with legislation affecting only part of the UK,  following devolution – i.e., the West...

January notes on things

Unless one is a fanatical Scot, it’s impossible to read the whole torrent of comments on the new-found Scottish Question, so selection is unavoidable. Actually, it’s only necessary to read one blog post and...