EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 11 hours ago
The Sunday Telegraph is carrying reports of leaked documents, attesting to the lack of preparation for the "nation-building" phase of the Iraqi conflict in 2003. In particular, we have Maj-Gen Andrew Stewart writing: "The pessimist in me says that Iraq is a missed opportunity … at the strategic level we had poor judgment, thinking there was time ... My greatest fear is that, should...
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | yesterday
James Delingpole is still on the case , recording the very slight coverage in the MSM of the CRU hacking. This has become very much another example of the blogosphere/MSM divide, with bloggers immediately realising the significance of the material, and the MSM running for cover. Given the intensity of interest though, this story is not going to go away, even if the MSM wants to bury its head in the...
Lenin's Tomb (Free subscription) | yesterday
"Of the more than 6,400 people surveyed, 53.2 said 'Transfer of Palestinians to another Arab country' when asked, 'What's the best solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict ?'" Copyleft of Lenin's Tomb
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | yesterday
"The choice of two low-profile leaders means that there are two immediate political winners from the process. The first is the European commission, under its renominated president José Manuel Barroso, who has emerged as at least the first among equals in the new Brussels lineup ... ". You have to read quite far down the piece, but at least its there, in The Guardian - the first (and...
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
Sky News tells us that: "The supermodel turned entrepreneur and photographer Helena Christensen has demanded that world leaders take action to combat climate change." WUWT reports that the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many, many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown. We now wait to see with the MSM will catch up with the real news....
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
Paul Belien over at Brussels Journal has an inside track on Herman Van Rompuy. Despite his comic-book name and his benign, avuncular appearance, this is a shrewd political operator. He was once, by all accounts, a human being, but has gone over to the Dark Side. Paul equates him to Saruman in the Lord of the Rings. The important point to take on board is that this is the Commission's man on the Council....
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
There's no other way of looking at the result ... Dick Van Dyke and the Baroness Completely Ashen. The two posts of European Council president and "foreign minister" have been successfully neutralised by the commission and its allies. The appointments are almost a joke – except that they are not. The candidates admirably fulfil the essential (commission determined) qualifications for...
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
There seems a resolute determination in some quarters of the media to deny reality, something which is especially noticeable in The Daily Telegraph leader today. "The State Opening of Parliament symbolises constitutional continuity," it gushes, its earlier pages offering huge pictures of the Royal procession to the throne. "It is an event intended to reassert the supremacy of Parliament,"...
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
A trickle of scary headlines reminds us that Copenhagen is nigh. The warmists are doing their level best to ramp up the fear factor – but so far do not seem to be succeeding. With even the Canadian weather forecasting service doing its best to emulate the UK Met Office, however, nature seems to be having the last laugh . Reading a first-hand account of the aftermath of the British retreat from...
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
As the media wakes up to the "drama" of the selection of the EU president, the usual ladles of hyperbole are being deployed, with The Daily Mail reporting the "chaos" as the member state leaders "struggle" to agree on a candidate. The Guardian on the other hand is working up its stock of pugilistic metaphors, as it headlines: "Gloves off as EU presidency enters final...
Lenin's Tomb (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
When the system fails people, the bourgeoisie instinctively responds by blaming those people for being inadequate and supernumerary to the system's requirements. During the 1980s, when there was a wave of anger and horror over the famines needlessly blighting parts of the African continent, it was a polemical commonplace to blame overpopulation. Today, a disaster known euphemistically as 'climate change'...
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
"The public has now so lost interest in politics ... that having a few more months of this Parliament may distress commentators and the highly politically motivated, but it probably won't matter at all to the electorate." That is Heffer in The Daily Telegraph today, talking about the Queen's speech. He is right, after a fashion. It is almost as if a light had gone out - we look at our political...
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
It would not have been the first time we have observed that the EU is very good at getting other people – like member state – to do things, but whenever it is involved directly in a project, it invariably falls apart. The latest evidence of that propensity comes from the New York Times , which is rather pointedly telling us: "EU Mission to Train Afghan Police in Disarray". Two-and-a-half...
EU Referendum (Free subscription) | 17/11/2009
The BBC and others are reporting on the increasingly fraught negotiations in the EU over the selection of a European Council president. Word was that he was supposed to be chosen over a working dinner to be held on Thursday, in the lead-up to the formal European Council meeting. However, we are now being told that the member state leaders cannot agree on a candidate, and that the negotiations might...
Videos