September 2003

BBC NEWS Chechen prime minister ‘poisoned’ It’s still not getting any better. What will happen during the “elections” is anyone’s guess. Or fear

It is with disappointment that I have to say that one of the first blogs this one linked too, WindsOfChange.net, is now persona non grata. It was an impressively professional outfit, but their recent and deeply unpleasant attack on Edward Said on the occasion of his death warrants the end of blogging relations. “Columbia professor…

So, the Iraq Survey Group’s report says they have found nothing at all in Iraq. What a shocker! This body was, of course, the super-super wondersquad far beter than any wimpy eurosexual surrender-monkey UN inspectors who would tear aside the veil of excuses and deceit and….something like that anyway. And they appear to agree with…

BBC NEWS Scotland | Ukrainian marines stop drivers How amusing….

For your information, the archives have gone missing. I will sort this at the first opportunity. Sorry.

So – the smoking gun is here. It would appear that Jonathan Powell, the No.10 chief of staff, sent an email asking for a statement that Saddam Hussein would only use gas if his regime was under threat to be taken out of the dossier because “it backs up the argument that there is no…

In the Intelligence and Security Committee’s otherwise weak and scared report tho other day, there was a minor gem of truth. In the past on this blog, I made the point that the Hutton Inquiry had demonstrated that Jack Straw’s excuse to the Foreign Affairs Committee was dishonest. Straw, you might dimly recall, made the…

It strikes me, with reference to the ID issue, that this proposal keeps coming back for reasons of bureaucratic ecology. The Home Office’s business is control, and any new function or technology or policy that adds to the size and expense of the control business will be loved there – organisations seek first of all…

Liverpool – Car bomb in city centre Stereotypes are stereotypes, but this is going too far!

So – it’s almost here. David Blunkett is apparently pressing to get a Bill creating national identity cards in the Queen’s Speech. And – after all the babble about “entitlement cards” that wouldn’t be called ID cards so as to be more cuddly, voluntary schemes and the like – he wants them to be compulsory,…