EPHEMS OF BLB

Levy Barder

2005-10-31T10:59:00.000Z

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Levy Barder, originally uploaded by Brian B. Harry Barder's father (Brian's grandfather): see http://www.barder.com/family/history/harry_barder/

Mollansvii05a

2005-08-12T15:03:00.000+01:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Mollansvii05a, originally uploaded by Brian B. A view of Mont Ventoux in Provence, famous (or infamous) from the Tour de France, taken from where we were staying at Mollans in July 2005.brian

Ephems has moved

2005-07-11T16:18:00.000+01:00

Brian Barder's blog, Ephems, has moved to www.barder.com/ephems

London’s 7/7

2005-07-07T18:24:00.000+01:00

Nasty business. There are 32 confirmed dead so far, as of early evening on the day of the attacks, but more deaths are expected from the four synchronised attacks (three on London Underground tube trains and one on a bus). Nowhere near the horrific scale of 9/11, mercifully, nor even so far of Madrid, but sobering because the techniques used can be used again at will: there's really no defence

Is aid a waste of time and money?

2005-06-29T22:08:00.000+01:00

In his comment on my post about Ethiopian famine relief in the 1980s, Patrick acknowledged that different countries within Africa needed different solutions to their problems and that short-term emergency famine relief aid ought not to be condemned for failing to have long-term development benefits. He went on to note some specific criticisms of development aid that seemed to him to be more

Wimbledon again

2005-06-27T21:31:00.000+01:00

Wimbledon fortnight (two weeks, that means, you Yanks) is here again and all the Brits are out before the first weekend. Our flag-wagging tabloids -- and some of the solemn papers too -- have been plunged into grief by the defeat once again of our perennial white hope, Tim Henman, who went out in a storm of colourful language more reminiscent of McEnroe at his saltiest than of Henman the eternal

African successes and the role of aid

2005-06-27T11:32:00.000+01:00

There's a fascinating and encouraging article by Jonathan Power in the current issue of Prospect magazine about the economic progress and successes registered by Tanzania and a raft of other African countries in recent years. Power notes Tanzania's many on-going successes (and the similar progress made by many other largely unsung African countries) and acknowledges the contribution to that

Live Aid, the NGOs, and the Ethiopian famine

2005-06-27T10:49:00.000+01:00

Last week the Guardian published a long article by David Rieff about the international effort to relieve starvation and disease in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s. The article singled out Bob Geldof and Live Aid for special condemnation, but also denounced the other western NGOs and western donor governments for allegedly supporting forced resettlement in Ethiopia (described as a campaign of 'mass

Telling a man by his books

2005-06-14T17:46:00.000+01:00

In response to popular demand, expressed variously in other people’s blogs as a ‘meme’ or a ‘tig’ (neither of which terms I understand), I join other contributors in answering four challenging questions – challenging, because blogging, emailing, cycling aimlessly round Wandsworth, listening to Radio 3, and watching the 24-hour news programmes on television leave virtually no time for reading

The UK rebate and the EU budget battle

2005-06-12T10:00:00.000+01:00

It’s becoming fairly clear, I think, that the British position will be: We won’t discuss the UK rebate in isolation from the factors that make it necessary and justified, namely the distorting effects of the CAP and the disproportionate contribution that the UK has to make towards it (even with the rebate). We are happy to discuss the need for a firm commitment to CAP reform and the implications

The easy way to monitor those blogs

2005-06-11T23:29:00.000+01:00

There's a seductively easy way to keep an eye on blogs that you find interesting without constantly having to visit them one by one on your browser. If you aren't already using an 'aggregator' to skim quickly through a lot of blogs and single out the items you want to read properly, have a look at the plain wo/man's guide in a new post (entry) in -- apologies for plugging it again, but it runs in

That hateful religious hatred Bill

2005-06-11T18:15:00.000+01:00

Once again the government is seeking parliamentary approval for the religious hatred Bill which has been repeatedly condemned and rejected on all sides, from far left to far right, as an unconscionable and unenforceable assault on freedom of speech and expression.Notable features of the Bill include the absence of any attempt to define 'religion' or 'religious', presumably because it got stuck in

The Golden Globe

2005-06-10T11:48:00.000+01:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Is it a sunlit planet, photographed from a satellite, or from a space probe? Is that a red-hot fiery volcanic crater from which hot lava streams flow in all directions, burning off all incipient life?The Golden Globe, from

The Federation of the United Kingdom is here

2005-06-07T11:32:00.000+01:00

The paradox highlighted by Tam Dalyell's West Lothian Question (why should Scottish MPs at Westminster be allowed to vote on English domestic matters while they would not be allowed to vote on Scottish domestic matters, which are dealt with by the Scottish Assembly?) reflects the anomaly in our constitution created by devolution. With what amount to regional parliaments in Scotland, Wales,

Photos in Flickr

2005-06-05T13:00:00.000+01:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing. It seems you can look at some family photographs of mine by visiting http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianlb/ -- although why on earth anyone should want to.... How we celebrated a family anniversary by the seaside in Brighton in August 2004 in the rain.....Brianhttp://www.barder.com/brian/ A Seaside CelebrationOriginally uploaded by Brian B.

Ratifying the dead treaty: flogging a dead donkey?

2005-06-04T18:38:00.000+01:00

France and the Netherlands have voted no in their referendums on the proposed EU constitution, and since the constitution can come into effect only if all 25 member states have ratified it, the constitution is obviously now dead (or, as the radio and television commentators relentlessly say, ‘dead in the water’, like some giant diseased hippopotamus – not a bad metaphor, perhaps, after all). Yet

Humanitarian intervention and its dangers: a hypothetical

2005-05-31T10:25:00.000+01:00

A recent post here, and several useful comments on it (worth reading if you haven’t already), discuss the dubious theory of ‘humanitarian intervention’ as a means for a state to intervene by force in another country to prevent or stop a ‘humanitarian disaster’, such as an act of genocide, if necessary (or if desired) by-passing the procedures laid down in the UN Charter for obtaining prior

Identity cards, the national database and EU fundamental rights

2005-05-30T22:38:00.000+01:00

The government's unlovely and unloved Bill for the introduction of (eventually compulsory) identity cards, and of the even more objectionable national database which will track all our movements and transactions from cradle to grave for the convenience of the security services, is about to be presented to parliament. The irreplaceable Bob Marshall-Andrews, back in the House of Commons by a

The ‘humanitarian intervention’ heresy and its perils

2005-05-27T12:59:00.000+01:00

In a Guardian article on 25 May 2005 (unguardedly headed ‘We must not give up on intervention’), Professor Brian Brivati, Professor of Contemporary History at Kingston University, appealed to the UK and other countries to bind themselves by their own laws to intervene militarily in other countries to stop or prevent mass killing, wherever it might be happening or likely to happen. “It is time,

Jottings

2005-05-20T17:50:00.000+01:00

According to an article by Jonathan Green in the Financial Times’s excellent weekend magazine, there’s a sign over the entrance to Camp Delta, the American ‘detention’ centre for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, that reads: “Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’. Can the irony in this be intentional? Were those who ordered this sign displayed really unconscious of its terrible echo: ‘Arbeit

Gems from the Queen’s Speech

2005-05-20T15:21:00.000+01:00

Some snippets from the Queen’s speech at the opening of Parliament, Tuesday 17 May 2005.‘The Duke of Edinburgh and I look forward to our visit to Canada later today and to our state visit to Malta in November which precedes the Commonwealth heads of government meeting.’That’s funny. I thought it preceded December.‘If London is selected to host the 2012 Olympic Games, legislation will be

Blog-hopping

2005-05-14T18:15:00.000+01:00

I was embarrassingly gratified the other day to receive an e-mail out of the blue from a complete stranger who had posted, anonymously, an interesting and supportive comment on one of my blog posts (about the Attorney-General’s advice on the legality of the Iraq war). As well as supplying his e-mail address, he mentioned that he had drawn on material in my blog (and also on my son Owen’s blog)

A bonny Merlot, whatever the man in Sideways said

2005-05-14T10:00:00.000+01:00

I’ve just opened a bottle of Domaine de Gournier 2003, Vin de Pays des Cévennes, from the Languedoc et Roussillon area west of Avignon. It’s a merlot, and as a vin de pays it’s what the pretentious call an unpretentious little wine. It seems to me luscious. So I have done a little research on this delectable and inexpensive (all right, cheap) red. “During September 2002, the Nimes area of

Electoral 'reform'? No, thanks

2005-05-12T19:03:00.000+01:00

Electoral 'reform'? No, thanks. The growing clamour for Proportional Representation ignores some powerful counter-arguments. Some of them are summarised in my comments on the report by Lord [Roy] Jenkins in 1998 which recommended a new hybrid form of PR for elections to the House of Commons. Click here to read them. And I have just sent the following message to ‘Andrew’, author of a splendid

Iraq and Mr Blair: “If treason prosper...” - a dialogue

2005-04-30T17:27:00.000+01:00

My old friend Peter Harvey has posted the following thought-provoking comment on the two-part entry below about Iraq and the question of the legality of the war in the light of the Attorney-General’s advice. My own reply to Peter follows. (I haven't been able to achieve consistency in font sizes: sorry!) From Peter Harvey: Your essay is an excellent description of the situation, and your

Part I: Was the Iraq war legal? Reflections on the Attorney-General’s advice to the prime minister

2005-04-29T15:43:00.000+01:00

The main importance of the 13-page ‘advice’ of the Attorney-General on the legality (or lack of it) of going to war against Iraq without a second UN resolution authorising it, given to the prime minister on 7 March 2003, lies in the harsh and unforgiving light it sheds on the same Attorney-General’s ‘opinion’, published 10 days later on the 17th, in which he set out his apparently unreserved and

Part II: Was the Iraq war legal? Reflections on the Attorney-General’s advice to the prime minister

2005-04-29T15:31:00.000+01:00

In Part I of this piece, I have suggested that the suppression of the warnings and qualifications in the Attorney-General’s advice of 7 March ’03 in effect misrepresented his unqualified opinion published 10 days later as being a much firmer basis for going to war with Iraq than in fact it was: and that the omission of the qualifications and warnings from the published opinion constituted a

Iraq and the second resolution: it wasn’t the French wot done it, whatever ministers (and the Guardian) might say

2005-04-29T10:05:00.000+01:00

Guardian Letters, 29 April 2005 (http://tinyurl.com/8a9ba) : I'm surprised that you acquiesce in and recycle one of the misrepresentations still repeated by ministers, of what happened over UN security council resolution 1441; namely that the government's failure to get security council authority for the attack on Iraq in a second resolution was the result of France's announcement that it

Secrets of the Attorney-General’s advice on Iraq unravel some more

2005-04-24T17:13:00.000+01:00

Back in February I speculated, on the basis of the information then available, that in his advice on the legality or otherwise of going to war in Iraq without UN authority in a second resolution, delivered to Tony Blair in a 13-page written document on 7 March 2003, the Attorney-General had probably expressed his own view that going to war without another resolution could be defended as being

A week in New York: ups and (especially) downs

2005-04-24T14:34:00.000+01:00

At the end of last month (March 2005) my wife and I returned once again to New York, where we lived for more than four years in the 1960s and to which we have returned many times, especially since our daughter and our two granddaughters have been living there. It was of course, as always, lovely to see them and to spend time with them again; and it’s always good to be back in that energetic,

The Paxman-Blair interview: some extraordinary revelations

2005-04-22T20:26:00.000+01:00

In the fascinating and revealing interview with Tony Blair by Jeremy Paxman, broadcast by BBC1 television on 21 April 2005, the prime minister told Paxman that he had not seen the advice on the legality of the Iraq war submitted by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office legal advisers, who are (or should be) the government’s main source of specialised, expert advice on international law. It is widely

UK elections: two hippos in the drawing room

2005-04-20T00:09:00.000+01:00

Returning to London on Sunday from three weeks in the US (New York and San Francisco) where the British General Election was a barely visible blip on the media radar screen, I felt like Rip van Winkle, having almost no idea what had been going on in the election campaign while I was away apart from what I’d gleaned from occasional glances at the Guardian and Times websites. Now, having seen a

You Couldn’t Make It Up Department (7): Selection by Prick

2005-03-23T22:21:00.000Z

From the Court Circular, The Times, 23 March 2005: Her Majesty held a Council at 5.30pm. At the Council The Queen pricked the List of High Sheriffs for the Counties of England (other than Cornwall and those in the Duchy of Lancaster) and Wales. After the Council, the Rt Hon Alan Milburn MP had an audience of The Queen when Her Majesty pricked the List of High Sheriffs for the Counties of the

From detention without trial for foreigners to control orders for all

2005-03-19T20:41:00.000Z

At the risk of boring everyone half to death, I can’t resist another interim* comment on the outcome of the notorious ping-pong match between the House of Commons and the House of Lords a few days ago over what is now the Prevention of Terrorism Act, with its provision for ‘control orders’ made by the home secretary to limit, extremely drastically, the liberties of anyone whom he ‘reasonably

The Rt Hon Paul Boateng MP embarks on a career in diplomacy – he hopes

2005-03-15T14:57:00.000Z

There’s more than one worrying aspect of Paul Boateng's announcement on 14 March 2005 that he is to be British high commissioner in Pretoria if Labour wins the forthcoming election. Paul Boateng MP has been in the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury since May 2002, having been Financial Secretary to the Treasury (2001-2002), a junior minister in the home office (1998-2001) and

You Couldn’t Make it up Department (6): Praise the Lord, and send a cheque NOW

2005-03-07T21:55:00.000Z

The latest effort to pop through my letter-box in a longish line of begging letters from African countries, pretty well all obvious scams, comes from the rather novel Malawi address “Along Chikwawa Road, 1st Turn Left After Stella Maris Secondary School, Blantyre”, and concludes with a blissful example of bathos (the bold type emphasis is in the original): “May the Lord grant you more

Control orders are unacceptable, whoever issues them

2005-03-02T18:31:00.000Z

I'm afraid the debate over the control orders is heading off in the wrong direction with this misguided concentration on getting Clarke to 'concede' that non-derogation orders (imposing restrictions short of deprivation of liberty) should be issued, not just reviewed, by a judge, matching the so-called concession he has already made over derogation orders -- which are irrelevant, as he knows

Was the Iraq war legal? What the Attorney-General didn’t tell Parliament, and why

2005-02-27T18:58:00.000Z

Did the Attorney-General change his advice to the government on the legality or otherwise of going to war against Iraq? (Probably not.) Why won't the government publish his final revised opinion on which his parliamentary reply of 17 March 2003 was based? (Because it didn't exist.) Why won't they publish the earlier advice given 10 days earlier? (Because it could prejudice Britain's case if

Remembering an extraordinary diplomat

2005-02-27T18:51:00.000Z

Sir Thomas Brimelow, [later Lord Brimelow] who succeeded [Sir Denis] Greenhill [as Permanent Under-Secretary of State (PUS) of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and Head of the Diplomatic Service] in November 1973, was, unlike his immediate predecessor, an outstanding linguist. Raised in a Lancashire working class family, he spoke French, German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, Swedish and superb

Dear Mr Condi Rice

2005-02-27T18:15:00.000Z

Understandably, perhaps, the Financial Times didn’t publish the following letter that I submitted to it earlier this month: “Your defence correspondent attributed the French foreign minister's greeting of the new US Secretary of State as "Cher Condi" (FT 19-20 February, p. 11) to the effectiveness of her charm offensive. If M. Barnier was correctly quoted, I would have thought it more an insult

The new Anti-Terrorism Bill: what can it mean, if anything?

2005-02-23T21:41:00.000Z

In the debate today (23 Feb 05) on the government’s Prevention of Terrorism Bill, described by several Labour back-bench MPs and others as the worst and most repressive piece of British legislation for 200 years, Bob Marshall-Andrews QC MP (Lab.), himself no slouch when it comes to interpreting obscure legal language, claimed that it was in effect impossible to discover the meaning of Clause 4 of

Oppose the house arrest proposals: write to all the MPs and peers you know

2005-02-22T12:14:00.000Z

The government evidently plans to hustle its deplorable proposals for house arrest, without trial on the orders of a politician, through Parliament this week, relying on its docile majority in the House of Commons and (to get them through the Lords) on the fear of the Tories and Lib Dems that if they persist in their principled opposition, they will be labelled at the forthcoming general election

Owen Barder’s Blog: go visit

2005-02-20T13:04:00.000Z

There are some highly readable and worthwhile entries, as of course you would expect from this chip off a pretty old block, on Owen Barder's Blog (yes, we are by some chance related). Browse through the list of recent entries, but in particular have a look at these, including some of the appended comments: Detention without trial Ken Livingstone is not anti-Semitic Reporting from Iraq(

Detention without trial (again: sorry!): a letter in The Independent

2005-02-19T15:01:00.000Z

The Independent, Letters, 18 February 2005 Special courts are the answer to 'house arrest' dilemma Sir: The Conservatives and Lib Dems (and reportedly many Labour back-benchers) are right to reject Charles Clarke's proposals for a new law replacing the present regime under which non-British nationals may be detained without trial by order of the Home Secretary. It now looks as if when

Queens, their consort Kings, and when a queen is not a queen

2005-02-15T21:49:00.000Z

The future titles and status of Camilla, Princess of Wales-to-be (not) and Queen-to-be-later (even more not), are an inexhaustible source of enjoyable discussion. A friend recently wrote to me in an e-mail that he couldn’t recall the husband of any reigning female monarch ever being called King, so there was nothing unusual in denying that title to Queen Victoria’s eminently worthy husband

Another Royal Wedding, a King without a Queen, and some polite enquiries

2005-02-11T15:41:00.000Z

So he is going to make an honest woman of her, after all. I have been proved wrong in my suspicion that the whole question of Charles and Camilla – will they or won’t they? – had been put in the Too Difficult tray, despite the danger that if it stayed there until Charles inherited the throne, any solution would become exponentially more embarrassing. We’re cosily reassured by all concerned

Action against terrorism: Tony Blair reveals more than he realises

2005-02-11T12:41:00.000Z

In his exchanges with Michael Howard, the Leader of the Opposition, on 2 February, Tony Blair inadvertently revealed more about himself than he can have intended. They were discussing what to do about people in Britain suspected of involvement in terrorism but whom the security service doesn’t want to prosecute because the evidence needed for a conviction might compromise its sources, and the

Detention without trial, house arrest and a very strange release (updated 11 Feb 05)

2005-02-03T20:39:00.000Z

The home secretary proposes to swap his powers to imprison foreigners indefinitely and without trial if he suspects them of involvement in terrorism, for new powers to put anyone, including British citizens, under house arrest and to impose all sorts of other restrictions on their liberties, the greatest expansion of the power of the state over its citizens in peacetime for centuries. An

It’s for the courts to take away our liberty, not a politician with a suspicious mind

2005-01-29T17:31:00.000Z

On 26 January the home secretary, Charles Clarke, announced proposals for a new way of dealing with people he suspects of involvement in terrorism, to include a range of restrictions on their activities up to and including putting them under house arrest. These proposals are meant to replace the present law under which non-British terrorist suspects who can’t safely be deported can be held

Who Believes in Vera Drake? (with postscript of 11 Feb 05)

2005-01-29T17:12:00.000Z

[This piece contains a spoiler, so don’t read it if you don’t want to know in advance what happens to the central character in the film. But in fact it’s completely predictable and indeed it has been widely revealed in countless reviews.] Mike Leigh’s film about the downfall of the cheerful, benevolent back-street abortionist in 1950s post-war working-class Britain is hugely impressive,

You Couldn’t Make It Up department (5): I went like, I dunno any grammar, do I?

2005-01-19T17:33:00.002Z

“Traditional grammar teaching is waste of time, say academics... “...Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education pressure group, said: ‘This research looks like it is advocating a return to the laissez-faire attitudes of the 1960s, when youngsters were not taught grammar...’” -- The Times, 19 January 2005, p. 13 Another lost cause, I suppose. Brian http://

Prince Harry: Much Ado About virtually Nothing

2005-01-16T16:52:00.000Z

As Minette Marrin has tartly pointed out in the Sunday Times of 16 January 2005, the case of Prince Harry and the swastika armband does indeed call for an abject apology – from the national and international press, for their sadistic bullying of a silly and wholly inoffensive 20-year-old boy; for blowing up an intrinsically trivial incident into a huge, world-wide, front-page lead story; for

Jerry Springer and the Christian fundamentalists

2005-01-12T22:13:00.000Z

Religion has taken a battering lately, with the disastrous misadventures of that pair of faithful believers Messrs. Bush and Blair, the murderous activities of various Muslim fundamentalists, the success of the Sikh theatre censors in closing down by violence a play which they didn’t want Birmingham theatre-goers to see, and now the demonstration by tsunami that if there’s a God, he (or she) is

The tale of a toad

2005-01-12T13:04:00.000Z

'I was walking along a country lane on a summery July day when I heard a hoarse whisper from somewhere beside the road. I turned back to investigate, and found to my surprise that I was being urgently addressed by a large and hideous toad, whose skin resembled wrinkled leather covered in some loathsome slime, mottled with what appeared to be suppurating green pustules. The toad thanked me

Cycling in Ethiopia

2005-01-07T14:04:00.000Z

It’s a common experience that living for even a short time in certain indefinably special countries leaves a deep and ineradicable impression. Even a visit of a couple of weeks to those special cultures or landscapes may print itself in the memory more vividly and durably than months or years spent in other places which are on the face of it no less picturesque, exotic or complex. Those who

Christmas in the sun at Sitges

2005-01-06T10:58:00.000Z

For a couple of years now my wife and I and two of our three adult offspring (hardly ‘children’), with a friend of one of them, have sought refuge from the forced jollification of the English Christmas (those paper hats and crackers, being pressured to hug strangers) and its ferocious costs (special ‘Christmas menus’ from mid-November onwards at £30 a head or more for luke-warm turkey swamped in

An Iraq Photo-Diary

2005-01-02T15:47:00.000Z

Stephen Grey, whose articles on Iraq and many other issues appear in the New Statesman, Sunday Times, Atlantic Monthly and other places, has put on his personal web-site a fascinating account of his visits as a foreign correspondent to Iraq since the invasion and occupation. It is lavishly illustrated with his own and others' photographs. Not to be missed. n.b. Open it in MS Internet Explorer:

Religion and politics in the United States

2004-12-31T18:20:00.000Z

On the Compuserve US Political Debate Forum a message (ws-politics&nav=messages&tid=177854&tsn=10">http://community.compuserve.com/ n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=ws-politics& nav=messages&tid=177854&tsn=10) has been posted in reply to claims that respect for religion as the foundation of all morality was at the heart of the philosophy of the founding fathers. The message, posted on 1 December by ‘

Robin Cook, Iraq and Kosovo

2004-12-09T18:54:00.000Z

On 3 December, I submitted the following letter to The Guardian, which (perhaps predictably) didn’t publish it: ‘Robin Cook (“A UN for this century, not the last one”, December 3) rightly welcomes the assertion by the UN high-level panel on 'Threats, Challenges and Change' that 'the international community' has the right under the existing Charter to override state sovereignty in order to

Counting the Iraqi dead (not): PM's Questions

2004-12-08T18:35:00.000Z

You'll probably have seen the latest 'open letter' to Tony Blair, published today, and signed by many of the usual suspects including me: it demands (or appeals for) an independent inquiry to try to establish the number of Iraqi war casualties, a rather vital statistic which our elected leaders have shamelessly refused to monitor -- or, more likely, which they are determined to keep secret. The

25th anniversary of Secret Policeman’s Ball: yawn

2004-12-04T14:07:00.000Z

Next week’s Radio Times devotes the better part of 7 pages, including the cover, to a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Secret Policeman’s Ball (SPB), a 1981 comedy revue in aid of Amnesty International. The event is also to be marked by a 75-minute television documentary to be broadcast next week on BBC4 and later on BBC2, and also by a 5-DVD boxed set of the SPB series running to more

Obedience to Holy Writ

2004-12-03T15:31:00.000Z

Michael Hewitt, an old friend, has received from an American friend, and passed on to me, the text of a splendid letter to President George W. Bush seeking guidance on a number of knotty Biblical points. It seemed too good to keep to myself, so (with Mike’s permission) here it is. “Dear President Bush, Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I learned a great deal

David Blunkett: the ultimate irony

2004-11-28T18:03:00.000Z

The home secretary's political position has until very recently seemed impregnable: he has even been mentioned as a possible future party leader and prime minister. His ascendancy has seemed to be quite unaffected by an unrivalled record of illiberal measures designed, apparently, to carve away, slice by slice, our ancient and hard-won liberties. He has taken and used powers to imprison

Sherborne schooldays 50 years ago: an unsentimental retrospective

2004-11-28T17:47:00.000Z

I have put on my website extracts from an unsentimental exchange of reminiscences with a school near-contemporary, Tim Weakley, about our experiences at Sherborne more than 50 years ago. Tim is more generous than I. For me, it wasn't an unhappy time; but the régime was one that wouldn't be acceptable nowadays, the academic standards were pretty lamentable, the obsession with sport was a trial,

Challenging the received wisdom on Kosovo

2004-11-27T17:52:00.000Z

Mark Littman, QC, has produced a new, short and pithy paper on the [il]legal and political ins and outs of NATO's attack on Serbia over Kosovo in 1999, drawing on new material that has come to light since his earlier (1999) paper, "Kosovo: Law and Diplomacy". The new booklet, dated 1 November 2004, is called: "Do You Remember Kosovo?", and the attentive reader will spot extraordinary

Tony Blair: is the strain beginning to tell?

2004-11-13T22:30:00.000Z

Seven years in No. 10 Downing Street and two major wars: the grinning, boyish Tony Blair who entered No. 10 on that glad, confident morning in 1997, those double-handed hand-shakes with the adoring crowd, the high hopes -- all that suddenly seems a very long time ago. The tired, haggard prime minister who came out into the press room to face the cameras and the hacks to record his congratulations

‘Cumquats’: A new play by Kieron Barry at the Landor Theatre

2004-11-13T13:13:00.000Z

This is an unabashed plug for an excellent play at an interesting venue over a good pub. But you’ll need to hurry to see it. The play, ‘Cumquats’, is currently running only until Saturday 27 November 2004, at 7.30pm, at the Landor Theatre, 70 Landor Road, London, SW9 9PH, three minutes’ walk from Clapham North tube station, Clapham High Street. Click on map . Tickets cost £10.00, or £8.00

Britain's bogus "State of Emergency"

2004-11-10T11:21:00.000Z

The Guardian Letters Wednesday November 10, 2004 Shame of Hue and Falluja Your editorial (Fearful in Falluja, November 9) rightly expresses alarm at the Iraqi provisional government using emergency powers, "like so many other Arab regimes, that would have been normal in the bad old Ba'athist days". Perhaps Ayad Allawi is taking a leaf out of our own government's book: it too, alone among

Bush: four more years

2004-11-04T13:10:00.000Z

Instant (or as the technical jargon has it, knee-jerk) reactions to great disasters are not always trustworthy, but a few first scrappy thoughts, on the morning after the day before, may be in order. The magnitude of the disaster can hardly be exaggerated. Bush’s pious words in his victory speech about reaching out to all Americans and working to deserve the trust of those who voted against him

Tony Blair: an exhibition and cartoon biography

2004-10-29T14:04:00.000+01:00

No apologies for plugging a wonderful exhibition of cartoons of Tony Blair (details below) just because its curator is one of my oldest friends, Alan Mumford, not only the management training guru de ses jours but also an established connoisseur, historian and collector of political cartoons and author-editor of delicious books of cartoons. (Have a look at some of the links in that last

Israel and Palestine: is optimism suddenly not so crazy after all?

2004-10-29T13:01:00.000+01:00

Earlier this month I put a shortish paper on my website in which I summarised a stimulating discussion of the current Israel and Palestine situation over lunch at a London club between a group of retired diplomats and a leading analyst of middle east affairs then visiting Britain. The guardedly optimistic analysis by the middle east specialist (whom under the rules of our discussion I can’t name

Daring to install Windows XP Service Pack 2

2004-10-29T11:45:00.000+01:00

I've just taken the plunge and installed Service Pack 2 in Windows XP, convinced that my PC would never work again after I had done it. I did (almost) all the things you're warned to do before installing SP2, although I confess that I didn’t brave the mysteries of trying to up-date my BIOS or my drivers: but I backed up all my files, set a new system restore point (although SP2 does this for

Down with apologies!

2004-10-25T16:58:00.000+01:00

It seems to me absurd for governments or individuals to issue apologies for offences they have not themselves committed, and most absurd of all to apologise now for something that happened before anyone now alive was born (such as slavery). Often, of course, what those demanding apologies from the innocent really want is not apologies but lucrative compensation, which is even more unattractive

Iraq: government vs. the BBC – Greg Dyke speaks (again)

2004-10-20T17:15:00.000+01:00

Greg Dyke, Director-General of the BBC until dismissed by the BBC governors in the wake of the Hutton report and the death of Dr David Kelly, delivered the annual James Cameron Memorial Lecture at the City University on 18 October 2004 at a packed gathering which included a representative sample of the usual suspects: Richard Ingram and Ian Hislop, Melvyn Bragg, Peter Hennessy, John Cole, Brian

International law on humanitarian intervention

2004-10-14T18:38:00.000+01:00

In a masterly (or mistressly?) article in the Guardian of 14 October 2004, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign & Commonwealth Office legal adviser who courageously resigned because she could not accept the government’s position on the question of the legality – or otherwise – of the Iraq war, surgically dissects and discards the claim that the US and UK invasion and occupation of Iraq,

You Couldn't Make It Up department (4): Goosey Goosey Gander

2004-10-14T18:07:00.000+01:00

"What is goose for the England football captaincy could be gander for the prime ministership" (Guardian editorial, 'The Hardest Word', 14 October 2004). But where's the sauce? Brian 14 October 2004 http://www.barder.com/brian/

Admitting evidence got by torture: a Commonwealth view

2004-10-13T22:05:00.000+01:00

Following my Guardian article of 12 October (see earlier blog entry) I received a thought-provoking and pithy comment on the issue of the admissibility of evidence obtained by torture, from an old friend and very distinguished citizen of an African Commonwealth country with long experience of international affairs: “Thank you for drawing my attention to your Guardian article. It is very

Blogging Brits

2004-10-12T18:15:00.000+01:00

«#Blogging Brits?»Go on, click it.

The UK Court of Appeal allows the home secretary to use information got by torture to lock people up without trial

2004-10-12T16:49:00.000+01:00

The Guardian published today, 12 October 2004, a long awaited (long awaited by me, anyway) article of mine about a recent controversial - and in my view insupportable - decision of the Court of Appeal. The court found that in deciding whether to imprison foreign nationals indefinitely and without trial as suspected terrorists, David Blunkett, the home secretary, is entitled to rely on

Those Australian elections

2004-10-11T10:34:00.000+01:00

Here are the first reactions of an Australian friend, John Greenwell, written immediately after the results became known: “The result was worse than predicted with the government increasing its majority to about 26 --an increase of about 3% in its overall vote. The worst aspect is that the government will now effectively control the Senate. This will mean a number of disagreeable things: notably

The charge against Tony Blair - and the others

2004-10-09T11:52:00.000+01:00

First, what the charge is not. It is not that he won’t apologise for the Iraq war. The cult of apology is a diversion. If a political leader has misled parliament and the people, whether deliberately or from incompetence – and our prime minister has done so – to such a degree that an apology is required, then the only thing he can properly do is resign. If a political leader receives intelligence

On the road in Tuscany

2004-10-08T13:53:00.000+01:00

To celebrate what will probably be our last new car, my wife and I drove down to Tuscany early in September, conscious not only that there would be no more new cars but also that this would be our last long driving holiday. Having spent so much of our adult lives overseas, and almost none of it in Europe, we had never before been to Tuscany, apart from a week in Florence soon after retirement.

Seeing 'Wimbledon' in Wimbledon

2004-10-07T21:03:00.000+01:00

Seeing the film 'Wimbledon' at the Wimbledon Odeon wasn't quite like seeing 'Casablanca' in Casablanca (not that I have done that, alas). Nor do 'Wimbledon' and 'Casablanca' have a lot in common: 'Casablanca' one of the great movies of all time, 'Wimbledon' surely one of the worst ever made, even by the sad standards of most recent British films. Clichéd, implausible, saccharine, maudlin,

The US Presidential and Vice-Presidential Debates

2004-10-06T22:28:00.000+01:00

Like (almost) everyone else on this side of the Atlantic, and apparently more than half of the electorate on the other side, I scored Senator Kerry a clear winner in the first of the presidential debates, relieved to find the President as inarticulate and generally ill-informed (not to mention petulant and irritable) as anyone could have dared to hope. The Veeps' debate between Cheney and

A controversial view of Israel-Palestine

2004-10-06T21:55:00.000+01:00

A new addition to my website: main points from a discussion with a prominent and experienced middle east analyst, with extensive contacts in both the Israeli and Palestinian camps, who challenges the received wisdom on where Ariel Sharon, Israel’s prime minister, stands in the political spectrum, whether President Bush’s policy pronouncements really do depart significantly from the Clinton

An Australian legal view of using information got by torture to lock people up

2004-08-28T22:22:00.000+01:00

John Greenwell, a former legal adviser to the Australian government, now retired, and a specialist in international law, has kindly allowed me to put on my website a paper in which he suggests a distinctive approach to the recent majority decision by the English Court of Appeal endorsing the Home Secretary's startling view that he should be allowed to use information extracted by torture as a

Music has charms to sooth a savage breast

2004-08-21T23:03:00.000+01:00

The BBC picked a good Prom concert to televise this evening, a welcome break from the interminable Olympics with commentators raving and screaming about Britain's this and British that. Musical cognoscenti sneer at televising classical music, claiming that the visual images distract attention from the pure musical experience, and it's true that a young ravishingly pretty décolletée cellist in

Admissibility of evidence extracted by torture

2004-08-16T18:12:00.000+01:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,59-1218041,00.html Letters to the Editor: The Times, August 16, 2004 Admissibility of terror evidence One of the many questionable features of the Court of Appeal judgment on the admissibility in terrorism cases of certain evidence allegedly obtained by torture (report, August 12), and one on which there has been surprisingly little comment, is Lord

Law and Order under New Labour

2004-08-11T16:51:00.000+01:00

A 'Comment' on my entry about David Blunkett’s latest appalling proposals by Tony Hatfield seems to me worth a post here in its own right – and I hope he’ll also put it on his own excellent (and beautifully illustrated) website at http://tonyhatfield.blogspot.com/. Tony is a retired solicitor with extensive experience in criminal law; he knows whereof he speaks. As he says, we are sleep-walking

Website back, and a new note on Iraq by an eminent QC

2004-08-04T10:45:00.000+01:00

After a few days' indisposition, my main website is restored to health, and celebrates its renaissance with a short but significant article by a leading expert on international law, Mark Littman QC, on the legality of the Iraq war in the light of the Butler report. To read this please visit http://www.barder.com/brian/ and click on the link to the Littman article near the top of the page. The

Summer isn’t a-cummin' in after all, apparently

2004-08-03T22:06:00.000+01:00

In a widely disseminated e-mail message the other day, I rashly mentioned in a throwaway last line that “Summer is a-cummin' in at last. About time too.” This has prompted the following well deserved and magisterial rebuke from that master linguistics professor and pedant-in-chief (First Class), my good friend and mentor Peter Harvey, who, like the immortal Manuel, is “from Barcelona”: “As with

Mr Blunkett: his new plans for our liberties

2004-08-02T16:09:00.000+01:00

Two new initiatives launched by our inimitable Home Secretary, David Blunkett, and his department, ever vigilant for opportunities to extend the power of the state at the expense of our liberties and privacy, deserve outraged protest, but seem unlikely to get it except from a handful of admirable organisations such as Civitas. Perhaps the lesser of the two offences is the proposal for a ban on

You Couldn’t Make It Up Department (3): New hard-working Aides-de-Camp

2004-08-02T14:48:00.000+01:00

From The Times Court Circular, 31 July 2004: “Her Majesty has been pleased to appoint The Earl of Wessex and Rear-Admiral Timothy Laurence as Personal Aides-de-Camp with effect from August 1, 2004.” I confess to being a little vague about the precise duties of Personal Aides-de-Camp to The Queen, and entirely ignorant of the scale of their, ah, emoluments, but it’s good to know that the noble

The curious case of Peter Mandelson, forgiven (again) for having done nothing wrong

2004-07-25T18:36:00.000+01:00

So the prime minister has nominated Peter Mandelson to be Britain’s sole new Commissioner at the EU in Brussels, on the face of it an admirable choice: the man is an articulate and persuasive pro-European, never lacking in moral and political courage, generally acknowledged to be a talented administrator who performed excellently as a Cabinet minister at the Northern Ireland Office and the

You Couldn’t Make It Up (2): New 10-year Plan For Transport

2004-07-25T16:45:00.000+01:00

Contributed by an e-friend: Ten-Year plans are really a great wheeze. Should the plan run its course it is unlikely, in the event of failure, that those responsible will still be around. And as the plan unfolds, as in the case of the Transport Plan 2000, it can be ditched and replaced with one which contains virtually no specifics. And certainly no benchmarks, as did the Transport Plan 2000,

UN and Iraq: Blair's version of history

2004-07-22T14:31:00.000+01:00

http://argument.independent.co.uk/letters/story.jsp?story=543322 The Independent, 22 July 2004 Letters Sir: Historians will be grateful to Clare Short for pressing the Prime Minister in the Iraq debate on Tuesday on why, having failed to get the Security Council's agreement to a second resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq, he nevertheless committed Britain forthwith to

Ephems' new look

2004-07-20T16:58:00.000+01:00

Some Ephems readers have complained, always courteously, about the format and design of Ephems in their new home (here): "All those damned dots!" And one pointed out that it was difficult as a result to print out individual Ephems. I agreed with that. So I have changed it. No more dots; and I hope the background colour doesn't give offence. The personal profile, list of recent 'posts' (

Iraq: promises, promises, broken, broken

2004-07-17T18:03:00.000+01:00

Back in October 2003, I wrote a piece in Ephems recalling that on two occasions before the attack on Iraq, in January and February of that year, Tony Blair had given emphatic undertakings on national television that he would not take Britain into a war with Iraq without the authority of the UN unless (1) there was approval for it in a resolution supported by a majority of the members of the

What the Butler Committee Saw

2004-07-16T17:56:00.000+01:00

What are we to make of the Butler Committee’s review of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in connection with the Iraq war? It’s already trite to repeat the obvious conclusion, reflected in broadsheet and tabloid newspapers alike, that the report is a catalogue of criticisms, many of them serious and far-reaching, of the way intelligence on Iraq has been handled by the intelligence

2004-07-16T17:54:00.000+01:00

The Butler Committee team