Charles de Gaulle would have been baffled and outraged by the Saville inquiry. Not by its findings, but that any country would go to such lengths to explore a painful and complicated chapter from the past.
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De Gaulle would have hated the Saville inquiry
Political labels such as left and right, we told ourselves when the Cold War ended two decades ago, are now meaningless. Yet we still use them, pondering endlessly which of the Eds, Miliband or Balls, is the most “left-wing” of the candidates to lead Labour. This may be a generational problem — too many of the ponderers grew up under Harold Wilson — or it may be for want of anything better.
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Where now for the crisis-hit European Left?
A favourite kitchen-table game is this recessionary pastime, more stimulating than I-Spy: each player announces, with appropriate fervour, which items of public expenditure should be cut.
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All we are saying is give Field a chance
There are few people who leave a legacy that is entirely to the good. One of them is Egon Ronay, the author of the eponymous restaurant guides, who died on Saturday aged 94
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Where Egon Ronay led, we’ve been slow to follow
As far as we know, nine people died in international waters off the coast of Gaza under circumstances that demand an inquiry. This must be an inquiry that Israelis, Palestinians and, above all, the people of Turkey can believe in.
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Gaza’s misery does not make Israel safer
Oh dear, Frank Field has only gone and thought the unthinkable, again. Appointed last week as the coalition’s “poverty czar”, the man asked to “think the unthinkable” by Tony Blair as minister for welfare reform (and then sacked for taking this remit seriously) promptly observed that the nation’s officially sanctified target for poverty reduction was “almost mathematically unobtainable” and therefore redundant.
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To cut poverty, we must cut also welfare
If I were Diane Abbott, I would be smouldering with mortification and rage. Just because she is a woman and black, she has been forced by her own party into a position that is humiliating and untenable
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Oh Diane, you are Labour’s Sarah Palin
When I lived in London a couple of years back, we had a fox resident in our street. This was Dulwich, so his name was probably Giles or Oliver. A fellow a few doors down from me, who worked in marketing, used to feed him every evening with organic free-range chicken cutlets served from a Heal’s dinner plate; there was almost certainly a rocket side salad and moutabal dip with roasted pine kernels, and a chilled chablis.
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Oi, townies – don’t treat Mr Fox as a pet
As transport secretary, I used to joke in the House of Lords that I was one of the few peers who didn’t have to declare an interest in a free bus pass. Most of their lordships, like everyone else over 60, get free bus travel, not just in their own locality but throughout the country.
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We are not all in this together, after all
Kantinho do Rev, the blog of the general secretary of the Episcopal / Anglican Church of Brazil is often a source of thoughtful analysis. Priest and lawyer Francisco Silva has written this observation which I am glad to post in its entirety
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Kantinho do rev on the removal of ecumenical representatives