Peter Harvey’s ‘Guide to English Language Usage’ usefully complements Burchfield’s Fowler: other new books warmly recommended, Lorna Lloyd’s study of the Commonwealth High Commissioner, and Frank Kennedy’s memoir ‘Dust Suspended’. All four have something in common [More >>>]
The bad leg remains infected and further treatment looms, so Ephems posts on G Brown, A Campbell (his book), the daft row with Putin and other tasty issues will just have to wait a while [More >>>]
Six cheers at least for the National Health Service whose guest I have been at a big teaching hospital for a week with an infected leg. Massive improvements since last NHS hospital experience some years ago: impeccable medical and nursing care and exhaustive tests revealing new and unsuspected conditions [More >>>]
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 >>>]
Numerous linguistic and substantive howlers enliven a single Guardiuan editorial. Invitation to visit a new language discussion forum [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An unpublished letter to the Guardian shows that the 1999 NATO attack on Yugoslavia over Kosovo was not a Blair triumph, as often claimed, but an illegal, unnecessary and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 >>>]