After the Gaza convoy killings: the roadblock to the roadmap
ISRAEL seemingly revels in brutality to a degree without current parallel among democratic nations. Time after time, its actions underline a determination to ignore the standard strictures that constrain states to use only the minimum degree of force rightly or wrongly considered consistent with legitimate national interests.
Instead, it seems willfully to rejoice in exceeding those [...]
Israel attacks Gaza convoy: open thread
DEAN offers a parody of my writing style when he argues in the comments box on the post below:
Oh I can’t wait for Dave’s article in response to the mass terror by Israel.
How cowardly it is to enter an aid ship with fully armed commandos and start killing people.
How the only tenable attitude for the [...]
Lahore massacre of Ahmadis: foretaste of theocracy
IT IS particularly cowardly to enter a place of worship and gun down dozens of people peacefully practising their religion. But that is exactly what happened in two mosques in Lahore today, and such an unimaginably wicked crime underlines the toxicity that religious sectarianism alone can generate.
For the avoidance of doubt, this was not some [...]
Iain Duncan Smith and welfare reform: no change there, then
IAIN Duncan Smith wants ‘radical reform’ of the welfare system. On a rhetoric scale of one to ten, at least the work and pensions secretary has turned down the volume a couple of notches from the ‘full-scale shake-up of the welfare state’ promised by James Purnell in 2008 and David Blunkett in 2005.
Such evident moderation [...]
Jamaica: Coke by name
CHRISTOPHER Dudus Coke would be just too laughably obvious as a soubriquet for a smalltime crack dealer on a Hackney sink estate. But that really is the name of the most influential drug boss in Jamaica, a title that is apparently hereditary.
At least 48 people have been killed on the streets of West Kingston in [...]
The class politics of Fake Sheikh scams
FUNNY how you never hear of a Fake Sheikh sting blushingly rebuffed by the target with a properly decent British response such as ‘thanks awfully old boy, but I really couldn’t possibly. I’m afraid your suggestion would be most, erm, unethical.’
No, the suckers somehow fall for it time and time again. Fortunately for the Sunday [...]
The economic consequences of George Osborne
TO PARAPHRASE the words of a truly awful 1960s musical hit, this is famously the dawning of the age of austerity. My prediction is that the results of rapidly throwing the Keynesian multiplier into reverse gear will not at all be pretty.
The measures just unveiled by George Osborne can only mean lower national income, less [...]
ACAS sit-in: the future of the Socialist Workers’ Party
THERE might be times and places in which it would be warranted for the far left unilaterally to disrupt talks aimed at settling an industrial dispute; it’s just that yesterday was clearly not among them.
Whatever justifications the Socialist Workers’ Party advances for invading the headquarters of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service and staging a [...]
How to democratise Oxbridge
ACTUALLY I do have a problem with the term ‘Oxbridge Mafia’. It is just so unfair to the Cosa Nostra, which at least welcomes working class applicants and is sufficiently discreet to ensure that members keep schtum about their adherence.
By contrast, the graduates of our elite universities flaunt their education for all to see, and make [...]
The dilemma for the Tory right: reply to Simon Heffer
ONLY a Tory without principles would demonise the right, argues Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph this morning. And David Cameron demonises the right. Simon doesn’t quite fill out the syllogism, but let’s just say that therefore Socrates is mortal.
Once one cuts through the customary Hefferian hyperbole, today’s tirade is basically an extended complaint that those [...]
