BLOGS
The Wright Way
Continuing the domestic bliss/ tv theme, one programme I have not watched so far is The Wright Way. This is a situation comedy about somebody called Wright, as you might… Continue reading
54 Comments
Memo to Iran’s apologists: President Ahmadinejad has denied the Holocaust
Has President Ahmadinejad ever denied the Holocaust? David Morrison, co-author with Peter Oborne of a new apologia on the Iranian ‘government’, appears to think that he has not. In a… Continue reading
167 Comments
In Praise of Sweatshops
In today’s Telegraph David Blair has a strong and angry piece arguing that we – that is, western consumers – are complicit in or partially responsible for the deaths of… Continue reading
70 Comments
Interview with a writer: Evgeny Morozov
Evgeny Morozov is an iconoclast. He believes that technology, if abused or misused, has the potential to make society less free. His latest book, To Save Everything , Click Here,… Continue reading
1 Comment
Islamophobia is a government priority. What about Islamism?
According to one of his family members Tamerlan Tsarnaev was, among other things, ‘angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.’ His efforts to refute this charge included… Continue reading
248 Comments
Maria Miller and Britain’s creative industries need to talk
Everyone seems to like talking about the ‘creative industries’ these days. For arts folk, it gives the impression that what they do is hard-edged and economically viable, it makes geeky… Continue reading
6 Comments
The Regulated?
With plummeting sales and the damage caused by the Johann Hari scandal, Chris Blackhurst had his work cut out when he took over as Editor of the Independent in 2011. Perhaps he saw… Continue reading
2 Comments
The Rehabilitation of George W Bush: A Sisyphean Task
Freddy Gray is quite correct: the drive to rehabilitate George W Bush is suspicious. It is also a dog that won’t hunt. It is true that recent opinion polls have… Continue reading
8 Comments
Scenes of domestic bliss, chez Liddle
I was sitting on the stoop with a cigarette after dinner while my wife browsed the television channels to see if there was anything we might want to watch. Eventually… Continue reading
23 Comments
The Ize Have It
She divided us in life, she’s dividing us in death. Baroness Thatcher was so controversial that a single letter in a single word in the subtitle of a book that… Continue reading
3 Comments
Simon Singh: Let us now praise a bloody-minded hero
I don’t normally campaign. I’m not a joiner or a natural committee man. But the state of free speech in England pushed me into despair, and three years ago I… Continue reading
79 Comments
Do the Americans want Britain to renew Trident?
What is the point of Britain’s nuclear deterrent? If it is an insurance policy it is a remarkably expensive one that might not, in any case, ever be honoured. I… Continue reading
17 Comments
Maria Miller tells the luvvies to take their easels off her lawn
Something had to give for Culture Secretary Maria Miller. She’s not had an easy time since the Leveson report and the subsequent battle over state regulation of the press. Harangued… Continue reading
7 Comments
Ceremonies of Bravery: Oscar Wilde, Carlos Blacker, and the Dreyfus Affair by J. Robert Maguire – review
The life of Oscar Wilde is so wearily familiar that we assume that there is nothing new to think or say about him. This book proves us wrong. Carlos Blacker… Continue reading
2 Comments
America, like Europe, is dishonest about Islamic extremism
I have been in the US over recent weeks, during the period of the Boston bombings and the hunt for the perpetrators. It may surprise some British readers to know… Continue reading
100 Comments
Why oh why oh why can’t Barack Obama be more like Lyndon Johnson?
So, is Barack Obama a wimp or just another lame-duck second-term President? Maureen Dowd, in her typically sophomoric fashion, appears to believe that the failure to pass gun control legislation… Continue reading
11 Comments
Are the SNP’s plans for a currency union a) Expedient, b) Sensible, c) Dangerous or d) All of the Above
Even if George Osborne is right about the problems of a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK he possesses the uncanny knack of being… Continue reading
108 Comments
The Gamal by Ciarán Collins – review
My editor told me to read this book and write this review. Six hundred words, he said. Just like the psychiatrist Dr. Quinn instructed Charlie, the protagonist of said book,… Continue reading
2 Comments
The moronic inferno, pt. 1,478
Is it the stupidity of Americans, or the stupidity of people who use social networking sites, that is responsible for the following letter, sent shortly after the Boston bombers had… Continue reading
86 Comments
At home with the Balls family
Do you recall The Politician’s Wife by Paula Milne? It was a TV drama that aired in the dying days of the Major government. Milne recognised that Major’s government was more… Continue reading
10 Comments