Showing posts with label Libya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libya. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Six of the Best 844

Geoffrey Evans and Florian Schaffner find that "Brexit has quickly and dramatically replaced the traditional party allegiances of Conservative and Labour in the hearts and minds of voters".

"I am struck by the reluctance to debate the failure of our policy in Libya during the Coalition. Although not the same as Iraq, the parallels are striking. We actually repeated the same fundamental mistake in not preparing for the aftermath of regime change – this we previously criticised Blair for – and we hardly talk about it." Geoffrey Payne on the damage done by Francis Fukuyama's The End of History.

Martha Gill hopes Prince Philip’s crash will lead the media to re-examine its servile approach to the Royal Family.

"Through content in the magazine, on leaflets and even on beer mats, we are essentially instructed to propagandise for a policy that promises to make our livelihoods more precarious." Richard Penderel on working for Tim Martin and Wetherspoons.

Joanna Turner travels to Stratford-upon-Avon in search of Marie Corelli, the town's second most famous literary figure.

Eoghan Lyng chooses the ten best tracks by The Jam.

Saturday, August 09, 2014

Six of the Best 456

Mark Pack has the first leaflets from the candidates hoping to be the next president of the Liberal Democrats.

"We were taken off the plane and bundled into cars. Hoods were pulled over my parents' heads. Libyans forced my mother, sister and I into one car, my brothers and father another. The convoy drove to a secret prison outside Tripoli, where I was certain we were all going to be executed." The CIA must tell the truth about my rendition at 12 years old, says Khadija al-Saadi on Gawker.

Londonist explains how London rivers got their names.

"On a summer’s afternoon, the scrubland hums and buzzes with the sounds of insects: crickets and grasshoppers hidden within plain sight, bees flitting between one cerise crown of buddleia to another, fish in their hundreds flirting close to the surface of the Irwell – their gleaming backs in the dark expanse below like stars in the night." Hayley Flinn visits Pomona, the lost island of Manchester, for the Guardian.

Episode 37 of A Podcast to the Curious looks at M.R. James's ghost story "Wailing Well" - and casts some light on the genesis of that Glee Club favourite "Woad".

The Downstairs Lounge on the 1962 performance that revived Frankie Howerd's career.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Six of the Best 196

Lewes Lib Dem councillor Ian Eiloart writes about his experience of having a stroke.

Peter Black pronounced irony dead after the Daily Telegraph complains that Herman Van Rompuy wants to set up a United States of Europe "with Britain left on the sidelines".

"Do you feel the need to identify with or be loyal to some geographical entity?" asks Jock Coats. "I choose Oxford though as it's of a size where when you wander into town you are almost bound to see someone you know and can talk to.  Not too big, not too small.  Not in the sense that I feel any loyalty toward it as a unit of government (I don't believe in that, of course!).  But if there were some good or service that needed providing through some voluntary collaborative effort, it is the size of agglomeration that I would feel able to trust someone else with running: I'd think they shared, roughly my own experiences of the place, and the relevant need being met; and I'd feel close enough to be able to hold them to account when necessary."

Love and Garbage was disgusted by British media coverage of the death of Colonel Gaddafi: "I did not expect to have to switch off the television when the BBC early evening news showed an image of the bloodied corpse. I did not expect that when I took the children in to buy comics the following morning that every newspaper would have an image of the bloodied corpse on the front page. I thought our newspapers were better than that. I thought we were better than that."

"An inside source in Chelsea’s 5th floor has let slip what a number of canny CPO watchers have felt for some time.  Namely, the Club intends to move to a ready-built stadium in 2020.  That stadium is Twickenham." CFCnet on the club's plans to leave Stamford Bridge.

Viv Turner, says the Dudley News, has written a book about her friendship with the children's writer (and Liberal England hero) Malcolm Saville.

Monday, August 29, 2011

The Framing of al-Megrahi

Today's reports that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is close to death and the row over whether he could or should be returned to prison Scotland all skirt around the most fundamental question.

Was he guilty of causing the Lockerbie bombing in the first place?

An article by Gareth Pierce, published in the London Review of Books two years ago, makes a powerful case that he was not guilty.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Six of the Best 153

"Either we withdraw to a traditional 'no fly zone' operation or NATO declares war on Gaddafi; these are the only two options left to NATO – it has promised not to abandon the Libyan people." Daniel Furr discusses our narrowing choices in Libya.

The Sandals Are Off believes that the longer the AV debate goes on, the more people will come over to the Yes side. He also criticises the limp leadership of Ed Miliband on this issue.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown should have been invited to the Royal Wedding, argues David Skelton on Platform 10.

Welcome to Spiderplant Land has visited the miniature railway at Knaphill in Woking.

"From the opposite end of the century, we are still reassessing the myths. But the fascination of that frozen hut, heaped with the debris of Edwardian gentlemen explorers, remains irresistible and unarguably poignant." Shaking Out the Colours considers the lure of Captain Scott's hut in Antarctica.

Rockingham Forest Cider celebrates the blossom season - thanks for the loan of the picture.

Monday, March 21, 2011

House of Commons votes to support action in Libya

This evening the House of Commons overwhelmingly supported of international action against the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Only 13 MPs voted against the motion and no Liberal Democrats were among them.

I too support the motion, as it would have been more than I could stomach to see Britain sit back and do nothing while Gaddafi massacred his opponents

How things will turn out in the long run is, of course, far from clear. But the current action does expose the dishonesty of Blair's argument over Iraq that no policies are available in such situations other than mounting an invasion and doing nothing.