Those increasingly surreal Tories
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...
Brian Barder's website and blog Brian Barder's website and ephems
Allegations of Ethiopian relief aid diverted mislead the world: an up-date
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...
[Internet connection down for a few days] PS Restored already!
Update, a.m. Friday 26 March: We are back online earlier than expected. It turned out that Virgin Media cable broadband (and cable television) had gone down throughout almost the whole of south London, so...
Some thoughts about March
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...
Gordon Brown at the Iraq Inquiry: the unanswered killer question at last
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...
Famine relief aid to Ethiopia diverted? A misleading BBC allegation
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...
Perils of a hung parliament — and of PR
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...
Bullying is not the central issue: what matters is how Gordon governs
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...
No more Ephems for a while… (with update 8/2/2010)
In a fit of absent-mindedness (aka sheer stupidity) I have just opened a seriously infected file (sent to me via Skype with a message purporting to come from a reliable Skype contact) which has...
The Blair defence: never take a risk
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...