347 items found
A threat to civilisation or a natural cycle in the life of planet earth? Although the scientific consensus is that man-made global warming is with us, there are still prominent deniers in the debate.
Gary Gibbon
The Mail on Sunday suggested that the Queen was unhappy with Lord Chancellor Jack Straw at last week’s state opening of parliament. Here’s a video of the moment he handed her the speech.
Jon Snow
After the outing of call girl Belle de Jour, Jon Snow blogs to put the other side of the coin, drawing attention to those people who have no cjoice in the matter and who work at the exploited, grubby end of prostitution.
Gary Gibbon
Sir Christopher Kelly’s report on MPs’ expenses calls for a law to stop the government interfering in MPs’ pay – but tighter powers for an expenses watchdog, as well.
Gary Gibbon
Gordon Brown is a politician, like few others in the UK, who knows and reveres the achievements of the Kennedy dynasty, but an on-camera tribute could fuel the row over his silence on Lockerbie bomber release.
Prose on the Afghan frontline, by Lindsey Hilsum: I had a book of World War II poetry with me while in Helmand with British troops.
Gary Gibbon
The £25 per day subsistence allowance for MPs splashed across the front page of the Daily Telegraph today has been claimed by MPs since it appeared in the Green Book of expenses rules in March 2009. But don’t expect it to last much longer. Sir Christopher Kelly’s Committee on Standards in Public Life produces its reforms in…
Jon Snow
It is the most revealing insight into the British establishment. A brilliant and treasured art historian, Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, a knight of the realm, is unmasked as a full-blown, remorseless and persistent Soviet spy. It happened in 1964, the unmasking of Sir Anthony Blunt, and he was simply allowed to drift on at…
I blame journalists. If we didn’t demand numbers, governments wouldn’t have to make them up. How many people have been displaced by the fighting in Pakistan? According to the government, 2,882,642.
Gordon Brown has announced a mini-surge of British troops in Afghanistan to help police the August presidential election there. He’s also promised a big increase in aid to Pakistan, with half of the money going to the Afghan frontier region, which Mr Brown has branded “the crucible of global terrorism”. His 15-page strategy document (UK…
Jon Snow
You tend to think he was just very fat and went through a monstrous quantity of wives. But Henry VIII was a much bigger man than all that. I’ve just emerged from the utterly fantastic Henry VIII exhibition at the British Library – a place far too many people have never been. I would never…
Jon Snow
The shredding of Sir Fred Goodwin’s glassware has an awful inevitability about it. His own behaviour may have led to his demonisation. It’s hard to see how his position can improve until either the authorities act (if there’s a provable case against him) or he tries to make some kind of amends.
If you’re the sort of person who lies awake at night worrying that the Taliban might get their hands on nuclear weapons, probably best you avoid watching Dispatches on this channel tonight. News correspondents all too often end up reporting the incremental ratcheting up of a problem. It’s startling to be confronted with the big…
WASHINGTON DC, USA – In a couple of hours the new CIA director will be sworn in – the heavy-jowled Leon Panetta who used to be Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. His appointment was meant to send the message loud and clear that the CIA and America had radically changed since Obama himself was sworn in.…
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – It’s hard to either feel safe or scared most of the time in Kabul. Part of the city wants to be like Baghdad; security companies whisk people back and forth from the airport, HESCO barriers line some roads, and large chunks of the government and Nato apparatus are concealed behind barbed wire…