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Map of #Ukraine redrawn at #Donetsk Peoples’ Republic leader Denis Pushilin’s office. Room 1007 pic.twitter.com/EQP826e7Xg— Chris Dzieciolowski (@kdzieciol) May 12, 2014 A tweet which fascinated me yesterday came from Chris Dzieciolowski, the Al Jazeera correspondent in Donetsk.Scribbled on top of the map with a slightly chilling informality, by the newly-independent region’s president, was this diagram. In it – by my… Continue reading Ukraine: three down, seven more regions to go?

Three years ago I wrote about pseudo-democracy, how a phenomenon of our times has been the introduction of a democracy-that-isn’t, to allow despots to continue in power while providing a vague cover of legitimacy.It occurred to me this morning that nowhere has this been better exemplified than with the referenda organised in Crimea and tomorrow… Continue reading The triumph of pseudo-democracy

PCS’ Mark Serwotka While we all want the morning of 8 May, 2015 to be defined by a triumphant Miliband glad-handing a crowd of jubilant supporters in Downing Street, it is worth taking a moment for a cold, hard look at the opposite: the Armageddon scenario of Labour returning to opposition. Although this may be… Continue reading Unite’s takeover of PCS raises the stakes for Labour

This morning I have been much affected by reading this excellent piece by Jaime Dettmer at the Daily Beast, which I heartily recommend to all; especially anyone who even vaguely doubts the brutal and murderous nature of the “pro-Russian” militias currently in the process of taking over East Ukraine.Rybak was a rather brave city councillor and former… Continue reading The murder of Volodymyr Rybak

Godwin’s Law of internet debating states that “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1”. I mean, how ridiculous is that, that people always ending up making Hitler comparisons? Take Putin’s Russia, for example, you’ve got: 1.    A vain leader, whose foibles foreigners find laughable and/or repulsive but,… Continue reading Eleven ways in which we can all be happy that modern Russia is absolutely nothing like 1930s Germany

Britain, like much of the West, is clearly living through a period of reluctance, even quasi-isolationism, with regard to foreign conflicts. Interventionism may not be dead, but it is most certainly having a nap. A perception that fingers were burned in Iraq and Afghanistan pervades almost all foreign policy thinking, to a greater or lesser… Continue reading Ukraine: at some point, Labour will need more than warm words

It seems only a week ago, because it was, that I was writing about the Guardian’s strange proclivity for printing pieces by some of the world’s most unpleasant people – most recently Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov – when I should happen upon this new op-ed at that very same website. Now, for many, the printing of an op-ed… Continue reading The Guardian reaches a new low (iv)

My latest piece for the Independent, on the madness of applying the same principles which are ruining our parliamentary selection process to the UK labour market, is here.

An occasional series, where the Centre Left takes a look at questionable things posted at the Guardian’s website, Comment is Free. As we wrote a few weeks back, Vladimir Putin has no intention of stopping at invading merely Crimea. On Sunday, a near-identical manoeuvre was carried out on three cities in eastern Ukraine, taking government… Continue reading The Guardian reaches a new low (iii)

Last week, Panorama ran a programme on the elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman who, as it happens, is up for re-election in approximately one month’s time. It would be remiss of me not to mark this event. Full disclosure: as regular readers will know, I have my own reasons to be a little… Continue reading Why Lutfur Rahman must go – an alternative argument