The last time I was invited to Alan Duncan’s office in the House of Commons I took a film camera with me. I didn’t hide it and took a film crew along with me. Duncan was charming, if a little cheesy, and talked eloquently about why Ken Livingstone’s oil deal with Hugo Chavez was bad
As readers of a right-wing magazine there is no reason you will have heard of the following individuals, but as this is supposed to be coming to you from enemy territory, listen and learn. Luke Akehurst (activist, councillor, Labour parliamentary candidate in 2001 and 2005) has always been a passionate advocate of the centrist New Labour
There isn’t one. That was a trick headline. The line between a state that tortures and the state that does everything in its power to avoid the physical abuse of individuals in its name is what defined the late twentieth century drive against barbarism. When the French were exposed using specially adapted field radios to pass
I’m delighted to see Tony Wright’s Public Accounts Committee recognising what many of us knew all along: a “culture that encourages proper whistleblowing… is the best safeguard against leaking”. The BBC has an outline of the findings here. The challenge is shifting that culture. Unfortunately, Britain still has an instinct for secrecy. The introduction of
This morning’s Telegraph excelled itself in the idiocy stakes. The headline on the story about the government’s Future Jobs Fund announcement was dripping with the kind of sneering philistine right-wing pomposity we will probably have to live with for the next half-decade. “£1bn scheme to create ‘soft jobs” screamed the “hamper” story across the top of
It was with great sadness that I left the New Statesman. I always said it was a privilege to work as its political editor. I wish anyone who writes about politics for the New Statesman well. It’s a difficult gig, especially in the present political atmosphere. But Harry’s Place has just published this recording of
Some will see it as final proof that I have made the journey from left to right, but I have to say I don’t see it that way. In tomorrow’s Telegraph I have written a column calling for the revival of the Thatcher-era Enterprise Allowance Scheme. This initiative gave a £40 per week payment to people
There has been an interesting repsonse to my last post about the libel laws. “Engage”, an organisation ostensibly committed to “promoting greater media awareness, political participation and civic engagement among British Muslims” has embarked on the bizarre strategy of libelling me. The organisation behind the “Engage” website is somewhat opaque. But a list of apologies and press complaints
Very good to see Nick Cohen banging the drum for the reform of the libel laws in today’s Observer. He raises the case of the mathematicians who dismantled the economic models of the bankers who destroyed the UK’s financial system. Ministers have urged them to speak out, but they are wisely wary of the libel
The moral of the story is: don’t mess with the British state. I woke up this morning to a message from my old Observer colleague Antony Barnett, who now works for Channel 4’s Dispatches, urging me to look at page 31 of the Daily Mail. There in all her glory was a transvestite called Delores Kane,
Do we really have any idea of how serious this is about to become? As I sat watching BBC 2’s recesion drama Freefall tonight I realsied that we are beginning to get an inkling. This was a quick-hit drama intended as an immediate response to the recession and it was very rough at the edges, but it showed
David T over at Harry’s Place blog has drawn my attention to this post from “habibi”. I’m happy to endorse the message. “This Thursday is the tenth anniversary of the brutal repression of students in Iran. Today a new round of repression is underway in Iran.Here is something you can do about it. An anniversary
Ed Balls has just started on Twitter and he’s already an avid user. I have always found Ed perfectly charming, but then, unlike Fraser, he has never bawled me out about anything I have written (even when I suggested he was a socialist). But when I saw the following “tweet” I thought he was demonstrating his
I thought my old friend Yvonne Ridley was just taking the money from the clerical fascists as a presenter at Iranian state channel Press TV. I didn’t realise she had been spouting the Iranian regime’s line on the election. But here’s her reply to my post to her Facebook page asking her when she was
The latest outrage committed by the Iranian state broadcaster Press TV is its coverage of the arrest of film maker and journalist Maziar Bahari. Maziar, a Canadian-Iranian, was arrested on June 21 and paraded on TV nine days later “confessing” to his role in a western plot to destabilise the Iranian regime. He had provided footage of the
I was delighted to have the opportunity to talk about the Iranian state channel Press TV on Newsnight last night (see footage below). Nick Ferrari has resigned as a presenter over the channel’s coverage of recent events in Iran and I’m certain Andrew Gilligan will do the same. This dreadful channel should be allowed to
Last night’s edition of BBC2’s The Conspiracy Files was a fine piece of television. It examined the conspiracy theories surrounding the bombings of July 7 2005 and if you haven’t seen it, watch it again right now. At first I thought it was going to be another piece of gratuitous “what if?” television. But it
The best New Labour policies have always been designed for sale to liberals and reactionaries at the same time. When I was on The Observer I always made a point of asking for the Mail on Sunday half of the story whenever I was pitched a Sunday trail for a policy launch during the week ahead.
This may seem a peculiar thing to say after weeks of anger from the public and self-laceration among MPs, but I’m not talking about the fall-out from the expenses scandal. I was in Westminster for the first time in ages the other day to attend a meeting about Bangladesh in the Lords. I can’t remember
Kitty Ussher’s article in today’s Evening Standard made me think again about the consequences of the MPs’ expenses scandal. Kitty will be leaving us at the next election because she wants to put her family first (a reworking of the old “more time with my family” formula). Her question is a fair one: “Am I