According to a report in the Guardian of 16 April, ‘Gordon Brown apologised for any disruption caused by the eruption [of the Icelandic volcano] but said, “safety is the first and predominant consideration.”‘ A...
Instant reaction department: This was a debate between three rival party leaders, not a triathlon. The media insistence that there has to be a “winner” is fundamentally fatuous. It’s not the Grand National...
This will be an old-fashioned, Old Labour tribal attack on the Conservative Party. (Hell, it’s election time.) If you can’t bear political tribalism, you don’t need to read any further. You may feel happier...
On 4 March 2010 I described in a blog post how a misleading radio programme, broadcast that day in the BBC World Service, and the BBC’s even more misleading advance publicity for it, had...
This is another collection of thoughts about a few of the events and controversies of the last few weeks, seen from the perspective of a committed supporter of the Labour Party who is also...
The prime minister’s brave decision to give evidence at the Iraq Inquiry on 5 March provided the opportunity for the central question about the Iraq war to be put bluntly and persistently to the...
A BBC programme broadcast today, and the advance publicity for it, give the impression that a huge proportion of the famine relief aid given by the international community to Ethiopia in the 1980s was...
With the opinion polls momentarily suggesting a narrow gap between the Conservatives and Labour, the chattering classes’ newspapers and current affairs programmes on television are full of pundits agonising about the dangerous implications of...
In the many questions about Gordon Brown’s merits and defects as prime minister, his alleged bullying of his staff and colleagues is peripheral (except of course for those whom he allegedly bullies). Any bullying...
Tony Blair’s six hours at the witness table of the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry yesterday gave us a bravura performance, allowing him to display all the old familiar dramatic and forensic skills that got him...