Dr Roy's Thoughts (Free subscription) | 27/10/2009
It must warm the hearts of all you trudeau lovers, that trudeau took advice from margot kidder. That his "peace initiative" was just an attempt to keep another lover in his bed. Lord Moran was quite right about this arrogant commie playboy. In his final telegram home before leaving Ottawa, British High Commissioner Lord Moran observed about Pierre Trudeau: “With some reason, he has...
Full Comment (Free subscription) | 23/10/2009
A day in the life of Canadian politics Flu jabs, pork barrels, polygamists, republicans, etc. You know the drill. We begin in The Globe and Mail , where Rick Salutin abhors the idea of governments advising pregnant women to come to their own decision on which H1N1 vaccination to receive. “It's brutal,” he says. “It's like your doctor telling you to choose between a triple and a quintuple...
Full Comment (Free subscription) | 23/10/2009
Earlier this week the BBC created a stir by broadcasting the first in a series of radio programs based on a fruitful access-to-information request that uncovered decades of “valedictory despatches” from retiring British diplomatic personnel. Hosted by top political correspondent Matthew Parris, Parting Shots studies this ancient, admirable, now-abandoned tradition of catharsis and candour....
The Monarchist (Free subscription) | 23/10/2009
The recent Head of State nonsense, in what was once known as the Elder Dominion, has smoked Canadian republicans out of the wood work. There are not many Canadian republicans, they are a small and rather predictable breed whose central criticism is that the monarchy is old and British derived. So are habeas corpus and free speech, the latter of which allows many republicans - who are overwhelmingly...
Full Comment (Free subscription) | 22/10/2009
The Thursday miscellany From Margaret Atwood to Afghan prison-torture to a national securities legislator, and back again. The Toronto Star 's James Travers argues that Rick Hillier's contentions vis-à-vis the government's desire to keep flag-draped coffins out of the news, and Richard Colvin's contentions vis-à-vis what the government knew about prisoner transfers in Afghanistan and...
The Phantom Observer (Free subscription) | 18/10/2009
If you’re wondering who Lord Moran is, his real name is John Wilson and he was Britain’s ambassador to Canada from 1981 to 1984 (Trudeau / Turner / Mulroney). When he left, he wrote a final valedictory letter to the Foreign Office that’s now getting some attention because it’s just been released (under Freedom of Information) [...]
Events dear boy, events (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
Will Chris Mullin'’s diaries, A View from the Foothills , join the list of great political diaries? Here is my list of must reads: Tony Benn, Barbara Castle, Chips Channon, Alan Clark, Jock Colville, Richard Crossman, Duff Cooper, Bernard Donoughue, Lord Moran and Harold Nicholson. Nicholson’s 3 volume effort comes top for me.
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