Not shot
The estimable Norm Geras comments on why we fought the Iraq War:
Is it any wonder that the New Statesman is in difficulty when it has a former editor of the calibre of Peter Wilby? Wilby’s opening move today:
Now it is clear that Saddam Hussein had no WMD, that al-Qaida has become stronger in Iraq, and [...]
The new totalitarian left
The imbecilic ramblings of someone called David Edgar have elicited this tour de force from Melanie Phillips:
I am following with no little fascination the controversy over David Edgar’s article in the Guardian last Saturday, which has upset certain left-wing folk by suggesting that writers such as Christopher Hitchens, David Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen, Andrew Antony, Martin [...]
The UN’s favourite conspiracy theorist
What price a U.N. expert? the United Nations Human Rights Council has appointed a new “investigator” into the conduct of Israel, Professor Richard Falk. However, it seems that the Professor will not need to do much investigating, as he already has a fully formed view: in his estimation, the Israel is comparable with Nazi Germany:
Is [...]
What civil liberties?
Poole Borough Council’s admission that it used powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000, (effectively anti-terror legislation) to spy on three children in order to establish whether they were the subject of fraudulent school place applications, is a gross misuse of the Act, a scandalous invasion of privacy and a wholly disproportionate response [...]