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NOTE: Yesterday, after this piece was published at Labour Uncut, Chávez was finally declared dead, the piece having anticipated the event by about eight hours. Not, we can reasonably infer, because it actually happened yesterday, but because the pressure from the Cochéz and ABC news stories, as you will now read, and the demonstrators chained… Continue reading The Chávez tragedy turns to farce

Ok, I know, I know. I shouldn’t be surprised after all this time. And it was indescribably dumb of some Israeli dad to dress up his kids in Twin Towers costumes as a Purim (Jewish April Fool’s Day) stunt. It wasn’t funny. But the whole Jewish diaspora around the world does not bear responsibility for that… Continue reading 9/11 – it was Mossad, obviously, says PressTV

Afraid I rather lost the plot and didn’t realise my fifth piece for the Independent, on Spain’s current political meltdown, had come out on Sunday – link here.

There can be no overstating the political and economic importance of last Thursday’s announcement from Moody’s ratings agency, that it is downgrading the UK’s credit rating to AA1. And the fact that financial markets were expecting it by no means lessens that importance. What does this mean? Simply, it means that the world’s economists think… Continue reading A downgraded government – but is that enough for Labour?

In the Labour party, we have, last week, been shocked at how one of our members of Parliament, Sadiq Khan, can receive death threats from freaks who believe they are licensed to make him vote against gay marriage by force including, apparently, murder. And Khan is apparently not the only one: Labour List reports that… Continue reading Isn’t it time Labour stopped facing both ways on Islamist extremism?

The most chilling thing about Michael Dugher MP’s timely piece on “mainstream” anti-Semitism is that it needed to be written. Anti-Semitism in Britain, as I wrote in the New Statesman last February, is sadly a phenomenon no longer confined to the fringes of politics. But our worries pale into insignificance when we look at some… Continue reading Safe European home? If you’re Jewish, that ain’t necessarily so

Since I’ve had a few debates with mad people recently, especially on Twitter, I thought I would save any other members of the SWP, Respect, Stop The War Coalition, etc. the trouble of having to think too hard about individual subjects, and written a simple how-to guide on debating “in the style of”. It’s really… Continue reading Political debates: a procedural guide for the far left

As we are seemingly nearing the end of the trial, and reporting restrictions have been a little altered since the guilty plea, my concluding piece for the Independent on this subject – which the Centre Left has followed from the start – is here.

While the latest controversy surrounding the Socialist Workers Party shows that we all still have an odd, vicarious interest in the goings-on of a fringe, far-left party – or as blogger Laurie Penny put it in an unintentional comedy moment, a party which contains “many of the UK’s most important thinkers and writers” –  we… Continue reading The far left, not so far from the heart of the Labour Party

Obviously the trial of the unfortunate Huhne, who has just pleaded guilty to peverting the course of justice, is still going on and therefore sub judice. I make no comment therefore except, having taken particular interest in the case, to refer you to two earlier pieces I wrote two years ago, when it was not. All I… Continue reading Huhne: a recap