Sir Brian Urquhart, one of the oldest surviving senior UN staff members, reminded us recently in an article in the New York Times that a former Secretary General of the […]
[This article appeared in the Daily Mail] The British people understand what politicians and diplomats euphemistically refer to as ‘realpolitik’. They accept that sometimes their leaders have to sit down […]
EVEN President George Bush played lip service to the idea of a ‘two State’ solution for Israel/Palestine. That, after all, is the default position of the international community. It is […]
It simply beggars belief that there are some in the British media who still take the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, even vaguely seriously. On Friday, we were treated […]
New York, or rather Manhattan, has been part and parcel of my life for over a decade. It is stimulating, sophisticated, and a city where truly anything is possible. But […]
Former Prime Minister, Tony Blair and former UK Foreign Secretaries Jack Straw and David Miliband, now face some extremely tough questions as to how much they knew about the extraordinary […]
As soon as commentators began to refer to the popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East as the ‘Arab Spring’, I began to worry that the near universal […]
The economic crisis is proving useful for those who want to see the European Union make the final and logical leap to becoming a unitary state, with a single currency […]
We live in the age of instant punditry, and I am as guilty of it as anyone else. On the basis of having reported from inside Libya three or four […]
When President Bashar al Assad was elected (unopposed) in 2000, many in the West heralded this as progress. Assad’s father in law, Fahwaz – who I came to know – […]
Britain’s Opposition leader, Ed Miliband has emerged from two national crises with flying colours. He may have been a little late coming to the first – the Murdoch hacking scandal – but […]
The fires have been dampened, the tottering ruins of wrecked buildings have been demolished. Gradually people have begun going about their business. Touchingly many of those who took the brunt […]
It is the thirtieth anniversary of the Toxteth riots in what was better known then as the Liverpool 8 district. I remember the shocking scenes, as a corner of that […]
Amidst all of the market babble and financial gobbledegook that poured from both ‘analysts’ and ‘practitioners’ following last week’s global market meltdown, came a shaft of light. It took the […]
Had Piers Morgan stuck with the celebrity thing, I suspect that the hacking storm would have touched him, but not engulfed him. Celebrity twitter is what Morgan knows, and it […]
One there was ‘Watergate’; now every minor, irritating little faux scandal as the mocniker ‘gate’ attached to it. The latest being ‘Tipgate’, an August silly season story that has found […]
No journalist worth his or her salt should rejoice in the downfall of another. There are plenty of commentators in particular that I could name who infuriate me, who have […]
For centuries, the best of radical journalists, campaigners and trades unionists have railed against the British Establishment. They have largely had good cause to do so. The apex of the […]
July 13th. Unlucky for some. Unlucky for Rupert Murdoch and the News Corporation mafia in particular. Last week there was catharsis as Britain’s shabby political establishment suddenly realised that the […]
Sales of the doomed News of the World increased by 30% we are reliably informed on the day the newspaper closed, and on the day Rupert Murdoch flew in dressed […]
