Yesterday the City of London moved against the fish porters of Billingsgate Market in London, revoking their licences in a move that would be more familiar to mediaeval Knights than […]
Ask a student, any student, what ‘R2P’ means, and you can be forgiven for the blank stare you are likely to receive. Flesh it out into ‘Responsibility to Protect’, and you are still likely to get […]
One of the many advantages of You Tube and the social networking sites, is that it is possible to get a real measure of the de-regulated, ‘opinion led’ television the […]
Amidst the failed state Somalia, the northern part of of the country, encompassing the colonial boundaries of the former British Somaliland is a functioning, free and fair democracy. Bizarrely, it remains unrecognised by any other country.
Perhaps it was unintended, but two or three weeks ago, at the height of the protests that was gripping the great cities of Egypt, the Director General of the BBC, […]
Here in New York it is possible to take a slightly more dispassionate view of some of the Western, particularly British media, reaction to the events in Libya. The most […]
I have a photograph back home in England taken in 1978. It is of a demonstration organised by local trade unions in the small town of Trowbridge in Wiltshire, South […]
Mark Malloch Brown, a former Assistant UN Secretary General and former UK Foreign Office Minister has today claimed in The Independent newspaper in London that the the ‘great diplomatic triumph’ […]
The most sensible outcome, and one avoiding the Libyan leader being killed by American and European led forces, would be to somehow organise his arrest by forces loyal to the Arab League.
THERE are already some on the Left who are arguing against military intervention – in the form of a no fly zone – over Libya. The argument has merit on […]
With thanks to Alex Weprin who on March 17, 2011 filed a fascinating report based on a study which has been posted in the journal Arab Media & Society. The […]
I am old enough – just – to remember Britain’s one and only referendum on whether we should remain a member of what was then called the Common Market, back […]
It says something about the rather dismal condition of both British politics and journalism, that this week there was an amount of liberal fluttering over a speech at the London […]
Regular readers will know that I take a jaundiced view of former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Of course he left office some time ago, and in normal circumstances this […]
When I first met Tony Blair in 1993 at his house in Islington in North London, I was struck by two things. First, the man who had just recently become […]
When the Chief Executive of Barclays Bank, Bob Diamond made his appearance in front of a House of Commons Select Committee recently, he said that “the time for remorse was […]
By all accounts, Nick Clegg is not a happy man. This week his candidate trailed into a truly humiliating sixth place in the Barnsley Central by-election, losing his deposit and […]
The other evening I was asked onto a radio programme in order to criticise the international community for being slow, or downright useless, in responding to the Libyan uprising. What […]
When it comes to the Libyan revolution and the peculiar madness of Colonel Gadaffi, what is the right move?
AS the United Nations Security Council meets in New York, Secretary General Ban ki moon is calling for “decisive” action to be taken against the Libyan regime. The UN Secretary […]
