Tony Blair’s long letter of 1982 to Michael Foot and his Guardian article of June 2004 constitute an ironical counterpoint, but the shallowness of both and lack of understanding of basic Labour values in either are consistent with the disasters and defects of his premiership [More >>>]
My letter in today’s Sunday Times propounds the only durable and logical answer to the West Lothian question: full federation. Michael Portillo’s proposed solution (Scottish independence) is unacceptable, as is the Tory idea of stopping Scottish MPs voting on Bills affecting only England [More >>>]
Gordon Brown’s strange commitment to retaining Britain’s ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent prompts many penetrating questions to which we’re unlikely to get answers. The decision to replace trident has probably already been taken, despite denials [More >>>]
Some creditable verse attributed to the young (24-year-old) Clement Attlee, destined to become the greatest ever Labour leader and prime minister. Can anyone provide its source? [More >>>]
Clare Short uses 13 words to split her infinitive, and Neal Lawson recalls two eminent sufragettes (Gandhi and Attlee)… [More >>>]
A post in Owen’s blog (http://www.owen.org/blog/528) demonstrates the falsity of the commonly held opinion that the period in a pregnancy in which abortion should be permitted depends on the point at which the foetus becomes independently viable. Opponents of all abortion at any time hypocritically exploit this fallacy. [More >>>]
The news increasingly reads like self-parody or April Fool’s Day spoofs. Some of the following examples make you want to cry, others to make you laugh. Mostly cry [More >>>]
[Picture]: Don’t panic, Ma’am: (a) it’s your 80th birthday celebration, (b) they aren’t loaded, and (c) anyway they’re only rolled umbrellas (all the real guns are with our lads in Iraq and Afghanistan).
The illegal and totally unsuccessful NATO attack on Yugoslavia over Kosovo in 1999 can’t be justified by reference to the Genocide Convention, whose obligations don’t conflict with the UN Charter. Pity Jamie Shea of NATO isn’t asked about these issues by his students [More >>>]
Simon Jenkins in the Sunday Times (11.vi.06) exposes the government’s poisoning of our society by its risk-averse and cowardly resort to ‘safety at all costs’, springing from its fear of being blamed for any disaster rather than fear of the disaster itself [More >>>]