David Cameron’s visit to Washington this month (July 2010) collided with the resurrection by some American Senators of the controversy over the release in August 2009 on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government’s Justice...
The Kabul conference and David Cameron’s pilgrimage to Washington have generated plenty of articles and interviews agonising about Afghanistan. Ministers are asked what would happen in that country if “we” withdrew “our” forces next...
“Is this the end of the UK?” was the title of a characteristically provocative and elegant article in the London Review of Books [Vol. 32 No. 10 · 27 May 2010] by Dr David...
It’s extraordinary that the national political discourse isn’t dominated by the war in Afghanistan. We have been engulfed in it for nine years already and almost every bulletin brings news of yet more deaths...
In August 2007, nearly three years ago, I wrote (again) in this blog about the scandal of Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPPs), under which people sent to prison for, often, quite minor offences,...
Dear Harriet, If the Labour Party is going to make a healthy recovery in time for the next election (which, despite the CameroClegg’s pronouncements about a fixed term, may turn out to be much...
It would be madness to venture a personal view on the latest Israel-Gaza conflict unless from under a double-thickness cycle helmet and from deep inside a suit of armour, but a cool, clear statement...
All sensible people are bound to sympathise with David Laws as his soaring ministerial career crashes almost before it has taken off. I’m not too sure, though, about what is fast becoming the conventional...
Dear Harriet, Decisions about what kind of opposition Labour is going to be obviously can’t wait until the leadership elections in the autumn: it falls to you to set the tone and issue the...
For one brief shining moment it looked as if Camelot might be possible after all: the LibDems and Labour share much common ground; very many — probably most — LibDems see themselves as left...