Cameron is right: Pakistan does sponsor terrorism
IT IS not logically possible for anyone to have ‘gone off script’ during an ‘unscripted appearance’. That David Miliband can construct a sentence accusing David Cameron of such an offence is unfortunate proof that the the control freak mentality that characterised New Labour throughout the ‘on message’ mid 1990s is alive and well. The occasion [...]
Unite: Len McCluskey or Jerry Hicks?
I AM not a member of Unite and have no factional alignment to any of the candidates in the impending general secretary contest. So much for the disclaimer. But I can’t help noticing that of the two contenders for the leftwing vote, onetime Liverpool docker Len McCluskey seems well ahead of his rival Jerry Hicks. [...]
Elton does Orwell? Sorry, that’s just wrong
ELTON John’s first professional gig was with a blues band that covered Memphis Slim and Muddy Waters. But he quit that outfit in 1967, and pianistically speaking, it has been downhill for the Rocket Man ever since. Now we read that the third most successful recording artist of all time has teamed up with the guy who [...]
Why Iraq is not a rerun of Vietnam
SUCH was the depth of popular repugnance to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s that its magnitude was apparent to me even as a small town preteen schoolboy in an apolitical household. Still I can recall watching the demonstrations on the television news, the ‘get out of Vietnam’ slogan hand painted in white on [...]
‘Democratic Kampuchea’ in retrospect
KAING Guek Eav admits overseeing the torture and execution of thousands of men, women and children at Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng prison during the 1970s, but insists that he was only obeying orders. The historical resonances are so obvious that they are in no need of reiteration here. The Khmer Rouge cadre – otherwise known as [...]
Why David Cameron snubbed the TUC
IT WAS unspeakably obsequious of the general council of the Trades Union Congress even to invite David Cameron to address its annual conference in Manchester in September. How amusing, then, that this thoroughgoing display of sycophantic servility should be met with a riposte of truly Old Etonian hauteur. The prime minister ain’t going, largely because [...]
A capitulation in Kabul
THE upbeat line for public consumption is that the Afghan national security forces ‘will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014’. Such is the strident claim from Hamid Karzai at the opening of the international conference in Kabul today. But the Afghan president’s apparent grandstanding speaks not so much of [...]
Thatcher with dementia: not a leftwing fantasy
A FORTHCOMING Hollywood movie will see Meryl Streep portray a dementia-stricken Margaret Thatcher, and the film makers are promising that the Oscar-winning actress will do so with ‘appropriate sensitivity’. That only leaves me to ask just what degree of sensitivity is appropriate. The former prime minister’s children are reportedly ‘appalled’ at what they have learned [...]
For the right to wear the burqa (and the right not to)
OF COURSE the state has no business telling people what to wear, and of course the French parliament’s 355-1 decision to ban the wearing of full face covering in public was motivated primarily by racism towards Muslims. On those considerations alone, the move should be resolutely opposed in France, and certainly not be emulated elsewhere. [...]
Tony Blair and the anomaly of Guantanamo
EVEN given Tony Blair’s widely hailed virtuosity in non-denial denial and his grandmaster-level ability to deliver evasive answers on the hoof, the former prime minister’s publicly-stated position on Guantanamo always did come across as just that little bit equivocal. Four years ago, United Nations human rights investigators called for the immediate closure of the notorious [...]
