Millions of its readers believe The Guardian offers critical, independent reporting that is different to the right-wing, billionaire-controlled UK media. But its limited coverage of British foreign and security policies gives a misleading picture of what the UK does in … Read More »
All sides pretended that Trump was a radical deviation from the norm, and so did Trump, when all he actually did throughout his entire time in office was protect the status quo just like his predecessors did. As writer and … Read More »
Guardian, December 12, 2022 A wider definition of human rights obliges real-world assessments … to discriminate between greater and lesser abuse, to shun specious moral equivalence. Suppose every word our media say about Assad to be true: a huge stretch, … Read More »
Journalists who know what’s good for them please editors, while editors who know what’s good for them please proprietors. Proprietors not only crave honours and seats at the high table. They also need advertisers and, in the case of the … Read More »
I don’t know a way of saying this that won’t sound egotistical so I’m not going to try. One of the most decisive differences – there aren’t many – separating me from most of my fellows is that they think … Read More »
Our species draws a sharp distinction between intended and unintended harm, even when the outcomes are identical. That’s why the law distinguishes manslaughter from murder. In both, the victim of a criminal deed dies as a direct consequence of that … Read More »
Condemning Putin is the safest, most redundant and least courageous thing that anyone in the western world can do right now. What’s a lot harder is taking a bold stand against the west’s depraved role in getting this war started … Read More »
Sometimes I feature pieces whose authors’ worldviews differ significantly from mine. Take the last post but one, in which Richard Murphy’s starting point is that all-mouth-and-no-trousers speech by the UK’s newly imposed but terminally ailing PM. From there he goes … Read More »
I’m indebted to bevin. Below my September 11 post on a former Swiss colonel, he alerted me to the likelihood that the Black Hole of Calcutta – its iconic status in that weighty leger of tales from the British Raj … Read More »
Poacher turned gamekeeper Paul Mason boasted, in a March 12 email featured in my post on the persecution of Tim Hayward, of having “debunked” gamekeeper turned poacher Jacques Baud’s analyses of the conflict in Ukraine. Jacques Baud (left) and Paul … Read More »