The Matthew Parris column in the Times yesterday – yup, Rupert’s Times – was headed, The Bombs-Away Brigade are on Autopilot. Its kicker ran thus: “Amazingly, Corbyn is right. The hawks just want to join a scrap with their mates … Read More »
[ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]I’m no fan of journalist Mehdi Hasan but credit where it’s due. On last week’s BBC Question Time he asked Small Business Minister Anna Soubry why, if we’re against extreme Islamists, we arm and support Saudi Arabia. “That’s just … Read More »
My friend Sue Beardon alerted me to this FB post of November 17 by Greg Afinogenov, a Muscovite living in Boston MA: I’m so sick of seeing the endless debate about “if you care about Paris you don’t care about … Read More »
Last night Channel 4 screened a documentary on Isis recruitment of British Muslim women. A young woman calling herself Aisha spends a year engaging Islamists, graduating from Twitter and FB through text and phone call to live meetings. She’s in … Read More »
Today I came across a few commentariat exchanges below a soberly laid out (if a tad detached) Grauniad piece by Kenan Malik. That zerohoursuni chap seems reasonable, well informed and scrupulously polite. Though heavily outvoted by the philistine element, he’s … Read More »
[ezcol_1third][/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] Why of course the people don’t want war. That is understood … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, … Read More »
Few things musical exemplify more perfectly the acid-drenched clarion call to sixties hedonism than the west coast sounds of Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the greatest of these was Dead but … Read More »
Dreadful article by Rafael Behr in the Grauniad today. You get the gist from its headline: Jihadism a symptom of western policy? That’s mangled history. In a piece whose thrust is to rubbish Jeremy Corbyn – in this instance for … Read More »
Like countless others on Saturday morning I padded bleary-eyed into the kitchen to make coffee and, while I waited, switch on the radio. You know something big has happened by the muted tones of those on the scene, and by … Read More »
I spent last week with friends who’ve ended decades in The Smoke, selling up in South London to buy a sea view in Seaford on the Sussex coast. On Wednesday hardy kite surfers were in the water close to Newhaven … Read More »