Democracy Now: an American TV debut
Democracy Now, the American TV and radio program for civil liberties and war-and-peace issues, broadcast from London last week. I took part in a panel discussion on civil liberties in the UK (More >>>)
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Tessa and the tax avoidance man
It’s hardly credible that in this enlightened age people with leftish views should think it immoral and unsocialist to arrange to pay no more in tax than legally necessary (More>>>)
Helena Kennedy: Power to the People!
The so-called Power Report contains many useful and stimulating proposals, along with one nonsense (that the voting age should be reduced to 16): but is it as revolutionary as its ambitious title suggests? (More >>>)
Pity about Bush and the New Orleans levees
The story about George W. being warned before Katrina struck of the danger of the hurricane breaching the New Orleans levees turns out to be wrong: pity! [More >>>]
Eurovision: Britain’s entry for paedophiles
Britain is to be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest by a routine depicting a middle-aged man leering at writhing girls in gym-slips at school desks [More >>>]
The Prime Minister in breach of the ministerial code?
By accepting that the Cabinet Secretary should investigate the financial affairs of the Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell MP, the prime minister has breached the ministerial code of conduct himself [More >>>]
More about the soon-to-be-suspended Mayor
An update to my earlier piece about the absurd affair of the suspended mayor, noting the flimsiness and lack of proportion of the full text of the tribunal’s finding [More >>>]
A mayor suspended: so much for democracy
An unelected panel of unknown nobodies has overturned the will of the London voters and left the capital leaderless for a month, all over an incident of unprecedented triviality [More >>>]
Club class for a prince? I wonder
Prince Charles confided to his diary that on his return from the handover of Hong Kong he had to endure the rigours of a club class seat while the politicians travelled in First. There could though be another explanation [More >>>]
Smoking: one more freedom and a lot more votes lost
Ironical that after so many New Labour assaults on our civil liberties, it’s the ban on smoking in pubs and working men’s clubs that may have turned the Labour tide against Blair [more >>>]