International politics

Good grief. Are we supposed to be surprised that senior officials at the US State Department take the view that Britain should, all things considered, remain a member of the European Union? Of course not. Are, however, we supposed to be shocked by Foggy Bottom’s impertinence in saying so? Apparently so. Of course, if the Obama administration were to say that it’s in America’s interests for Britain to leave the EU then I hazard many of those pretending – for surely it must only be a pretence? – to be outraged by this damned interference in our own affairs would instead welcome the Americans’ intervention in the debate and use

For anybody who needs reminding of how stupid ‘clever’ people can be, can I recommend Guido’s post on the Ralph Miliband lecture series?  Each year the London School of Economics still holds an annual commemoration of the dead Marxist now best known of as the father of David and Ed.  Much that has gone wrong with our universities can be learnt by briefly considering these events. This year the lectures will include the blogger Laurie Penny talking about ‘Women, protest and the nature of female rebellion’.  She will be doing this in LSE’s Sheikh Zayed Theatre. But best of all is to recall the 2010 lecture given by LSE alumnus Saif Gaddafi. 

Earlier this week I suggested that America’s gun owners have often been let down by the leadership of the gun-rights movement. I don’t know if that has ever been more obvious than it is today. The press conference – well, a statement really, since there were no questions permitted – held by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre is quite extraordinary. Reading the transcript I thought at first that it must be a parody written by gun-control activists determined to discredit the National Rifle Association. Turns out there’s no need to attempt that, not when the NRA is prepared to do the job itself. I don’t know if I can recall a

A couple of weeks ago the great global warming bandwagon coughed and spluttered to a halt in Doha, the latest stop on its never-ending world tour. The annual UN climate conference COP18 is no small affair. This is a bandwagon whose riders number in the thousands: motorcades of politicians, buses full of technocrats and policy wonks and jumbo-jets full of hippies travelling half way round the world, (ostensibly) to save the planet from the (allegedly) pressing problem of climate change This is despite the fact that nobody seems able to point to any great problems caused by the modest warming of the globe at the end of the last century

Speaking of politicians worthy of your support, here’s Senator Rand Paul doing his thing: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is holding up a vote on the Defense Authorization Act until he gets a vote on his amendment affirming the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution and the indefinite detention of Americans. […] Paul’s amendment would give American citizens being held by the military rights to a fair trial with a jury of peers and the right to confront the witnesses against him or her. “A citizen of the United States who is captured or arrested in the United States and detained by the Armed Forces of the United States pursuant to the

So, we’ve had nearly a week to digest the results of the American election and contemplate what, if anything, it might all mean for politics there and, naturally, in this country too. Let’s begin with a necessary caveat: the “read-across” from American elections to the British political scene is something that must be handled deftly. If considered with a sensible measure of proportion, however, it can be instructive since some of the challenges facing political leaders in Britain are comparable in kind (though not always in degree) to those faced by their cousins in the United States. Demographics aren’t destiny and policy matters more than journalists sometimes liked to pretend.