Four of Mr Blair’s expensive follies, Iraq, Trident, ID cards, the Olympics, are costing us around £143 billion over just a few years. How did the Chancellor, successive cabinets and a majority of Labour MPs allow this gross waste of money to be approved? [More >>>]
My letter in the Financial Times (17.iii.07) explains how Christopher Caldwell’s analogy between an elected House of Lords and the US Senate is flawed, and why an all-elected second chamber is essential [More >>>]
The case against renewing Trident: the cost of renewing the UK ‘deterrent’ is disproportionate to the remote possibility of our needing it, it’s not ‘independent’ but increases UK dependence on the US, there’s noone to deter, and the policy reflects the government’s obsession with covering itself against blame for even the most improbable future disaster [more >>>]
A war crimes trial concerning events in Kosovo in 1998-99 involves charges against Kosovo Albanians for their alleged activities in the KLA, not Serbs as many might assume. Reports repeat the old myth about the ‘success’ of the NATO bombing [More >>>]
A 10-point manifesto for a new Labour leader, offered to Comrades Clarke and Milburn for their new ‘open debate’ website (but not yet approved for public exposure there) … [More >>>]
The second of a 3-part television assessment of Blair’s premiership, although damning, was flawed by too many uncorrected misrepresentations of the historical record. The verdict: a weak and self-deluded man repeatedly using dishonest means to promote what he believes to be right [More >>>]
Listen to a BBC radio 4 play (9pm, 16 March) about a prisoner who for 25 years inside insisted that he was innocent, and as a result was denied parole — and has now won his appeal against conviction [More >>>]
A message to my MP about how to frustrate Jack Straw’s incredible proposals for House of Lords reform, and a plea for others to write similarly to their own MPs [More >>>]
Another batch of objections to the proposed federation of the United Kingdom, and why they’re invalid: plus some clarifications [More >>>]
Another Control Order has been quashed for failure to consider prosecuting the suspect instead, and because its restrictions are in breach of the Human Rights Convention. Time to scrap control orders and allow secret evidence in certain limited cases to be heard in ordinary criminal courts. Update (25/ii/07) on SIAC [More >>>]