Category: News

David Kay has quit his job searching for those elusive WMDs in Iraq. Seemingly it’s not just down to there being nothing out there to find, but personal reasons too. But this is vital news in a week when the Hutton Report is published. While that report is specifically looking at the death of Dr…

As a service to the general public, with planes being cancelled and countries being invaded, I’ve decided to introduce the brand new Hysteria Meter. Based very loosely on the UK and US Governments’ regular pronouncements about how safe we are at any given moment, this meter will accurately reflect the current way of thinking at…

It came as something as a suprise, since I thought that he would be holed up in some far flung corner of the globe, but Saddam Hussein’s been captured with a shot being fired.

There’s a great article in today’s Guardian by Nick Davies which looks at how all our intelligence agencies work, or rather, don’t work together. Over a few thousand words, he details the problems that confront intra-agency initiatives dealing in particular with a terrorist threat in the UK. Some of it is quite shocking: the Customs…

There have now been two injunctions in two days relating to a story that The Mail on Sunday first attempted to run this weekend. It seems particularly dubious use of the law since one can’t comit libel until it’s actually been printed. But here’s the run – I think I know what the story is,…

There was a fantastic article in The Guardian last Friday detailing the environmental travesties that are taking place across the USA. It seems that the US simply can’t face up to what’s happening. Actually I say “article” but it’s more of a mini-book, being several thousand words long.

I thought that I ought to record this. I was on my way to Enfield Town station, taking a back route through Holly Walk when I approached the market place. I couldn’t help but notice that crash barriers seem to have been placed up, there were police in evidence, and all the market stalls were…

Sad news from today’s Mirror, that Terry Lloyd was actually shot in a second attack after he’d got in a mini-van of an Iraqi who was going to help him. There were also injured Iraqi soldiers in the van, one of whom was killed, when they all came under fire from a Helicopter gunship, seemingly…

In an interesting turn of events, Ryanair has suspended flights to Strasbourg after a court launched an investigation into Ryanair receiving 1.4m Euros from the local Bas-Rhin Chamber of Commerce. I must admit that I’ve always seen something like this coming. Ryanair gets payments from a number of smaller regional airports around Europe in return…

When one is awarded one’s degree at the ceremony, in my case in a large tent on the grounds of Bath University, it’s common that some great and good person is given an honorary gong. It was with great pleasure that Wilfred Thesiger was there to receive an honorary degree of some sort (I say…

Sadly Alexander Walker, film critic for over 40 years at the Evening Standard has died at the age of 73. You didn’t always take his side of things with films, but he always remained an excellent and never less than fascinating film reviewer – one that I’d always read. The Standard’s obituary is here, The…

As I sat and read in the park this afternoon, listening to the cricket, I read a couple of very interesting stories in the Business section of The Observer. The first was a piece about a tiny set of islands called S�o Tom� and Princ�pe – just off the coast of West Africa. I’ve got…

So Berlusconi’s managed to get himself off some more alleged crimes. It’s ever so handy to be president when you don’t want to be found guilty of something. You just change the law.