Photograph courtesy of Flickr user lmg
The messy aftermath of Peter Hain’s resignation will not clear for sometime. Hain has fallen on his sorry sword for not declaring 17 donations in his deputy leadership campaign in time, a feat Gordon Brown disparagingly referred to as “incompetence”. But expect more swords to be self-sharpened in the coming [...]
Filed under: corruption, jackprevezer, labour, ukpolitics on January 25th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user *Hiro
Does the West cause Islamic extremism? Is it the war in Iraq what done it, or decades of support for Israel, or centuries of imperialism? In a trivial sense, yes. If we’d done things differently, the consequences would have played out differently. It’s easy to construct stories of how this [...]
Filed under: foreignpolicy, iraq, jonathanbirch, middleeast, ukpolitics on January 24th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
There’s an interesting post over at Marginal Revolution (which is probably the most consistently interesting blog on the planet, so if you don’t read it, start now) about why so many US politicians are lawyers. The phenomenon is not quite as great in the UK though Tony Blair, Michael Howard and Ming Campbell were all [...]
Filed under: education, ideas, ukpolitics on January 24th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
John McCain ought to have a big problem - namely that Republicans don’t actually like him very much and it’s Republicans that he has to convince to make him the party’s nominee. As I’ve argued recently, McCain’s popularity comes from a relatively small section of the Republican broad church.
So far, his saving grace is that [...]
Filed under: election2008, fredthompson, johnmccain, mattclifford, rudyriuliani, uspolitics on January 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
The debate in Myrtle Beach, SC, broke records as over 5 million Americans tuned in for a good old-fashioned mudslinging contest. But unlike the GOP candidates, there really is very little difference between the positions of Clinton, Obama and Edwards on the important issues. All want a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq, all support [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized, barackobama, election2008, hillaryclinton, jameschettle, uspolitics on January 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
Thank you to everyone who filled the Latimer room beyond capacity to hear David Loyn this evening.
David shared with us his free and frank assessment of the history, present and future of the conflicts in Afghanistan in a talk he preferred that we did not record. He gave detailed analyses of the military, [...]
Filed under: 9/11, afghanistan, bbc, clarepoliticsnews, davidloyn, foreignpolicy, history, speaker discussion, taliban on January 22nd, 2008 | No Comments »
More interesting exit polls over the weekend. I’m a little rushed today, so a detailed look will have to wait until later but three potentially very important points:
1. Obama won 83% of the black vote in Nevada. That’s really huge: African-Americans used to be some of the Clinton’s most loyal supports. Indeed, Bill has been [...]
Filed under: barackobama, election2008, hillaryclinton, mattclifford, uspolitics on January 21st, 2008 | 1 Comment »
CC licensed photograph courtesy of Flickr user night86mare
Tuesday 12th February – 8.45pm
Sir Philip Mawer is currently the Prime Minister’s Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests and was from 2002 - 2007 the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. Dubbed by the press the ‘Commons sleaze buster’ Sir Philip was entrusted with arguably one of the toughest jobs [...]
Filed under: clarepoliticsnews, corruption, sirphilipmawer, sleaze, ukpolitics on January 21st, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user the hanner
British Airways flight 038 has absorbed the attention of newscasters this week. It crashed or, in pilot parlance, it required an emergency landing. At any rate, they’re all heroes now: the pilot, the cabin crew, all of them. A microphone has been directed at some passengers, allowing them to [...]
Filed under: conservatives, robertstagg, socialjustice on January 20th, 2008 | 5 Comments »
This is the question put to some of the world’s most eminent intellectuals (such as Steven Pinker, pictured) on this fascinating page, which I’ve been meaning to write about for some time. Responses range from climate change to Wikipedia, incorporating science, politics, philosophy and maths. There’s (arguably) some more veiled sexism from Simon “Not Borat” [...]
Filed under: climatechange, culture, ideas, jonathanbirch on January 20th, 2008 | No Comments »
