Anne Lapping’s and Andrew Rawnsley’s TV retrospective of the Blair years offers many new insights and familiar footage, prompting disagreement with its misleading account of Blair’s role at Kosovo and Chirac’s at the UN before the Iraq war. But many good things redeem the programme [More >>>]
Stephen Grey’s latest revelations of extraordinary rendition by US intelligence are recounted in a major UK TV programme. How can such criminal misdeeds continue in the US, of all countries? [More >>>]
Go and see an admirable chronicle of the theft of our civil liberties by the Blairistas, in a film released on 8 June, ‘Taking Liberties’ — and follow its progress on its blog [More >>>]
With only a month to go before they step down, Blair and Reid have launched proposals for yet more draconian police powers in yet another anti-terror law, while Blair blames the judges, the opposition and ‘society’ for limiting his scope for further eroding our civil liberties [More >>>]
The Independent publishes my letter offering Gordon Brown a Big Idea for the launch of his government, one that answers the West Lothian question and scuppers the case for Scottish independence. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity [More >>>]
An unpublished letter to the Guardian shows that the 1999 NATO attack on Yugoslavia over Kosovo was not a Blair triumph, as often claimed, but an illegal, unnecessary and unsuccessful misadventure whose misrepresentation as a justified success led on to Iraq [More >>>]
Dr Reid, the (mercifully) departing home secretary, has been explaining that if judges and ministers insist on obeying the letter of the law, they may fail in their duty to protect citizens’ lives — an unusual attitude to respect for the law for a home secretary in office [More >>>]
The almost unintelligible PR system for Scottish elections has produced a virtual stalemate in which almost anything could happen and the chances of a stable and consistent government look slim [More >>>]
The evidence does not support the recently repeated myth that in resigning over the Falklands war, Lord Carrington and his FCO ministerial colleagues were selflessly carrying the can for the errors of their officials. But the myth persists [More >>>]
The Virginia Tech horror can’t justify the government’s misconceived plan to lock up untreatable people with severe personality disorder in case they might otherwise commit a crime, “just to be on the safe side”. Another example of risk-averse ministers trying to guard against any accusation of complacency or inaction [More >>>]