Central Asian friends of ours thought that all their dreams had come true when they won a green card and went to live in Florida. But reality soon caught up – living in a cramped room, and no work. Their baby soon got seriously ill, but they were turned away from hospital as they had [...]

A very senior diplomatic source told me yesterday that Berlusconi is frantic lest Gadaffi falls and the channels are revealed by which Berlusconi gets a cut on the huge amounts of Libyan oil and gas lifted to Italy. Just at the moment that would be too much even for Berlusconi to survive. This morning I [...]

The decision to put Julian Assange in a cell over ludicrous sexual offence allegations is a politically motivated act that must be resisted. Assange has never been in hiding from the police, and there is no reason at all to believe he would abscond if granted bail. This is kompromat – the use of sexual [...]

Here are some brief comments on events while I was busy biographing: Prince William to wed Kate Middleton I really don’t give a fuck. Have you noticed he is strangely getting less bald? They’ll both be middle aged and ugly before they come to the throne. Or hopefully not. Coalition launch “Starve the feckless” scheme [...]

British democracy has lost its meaning. The political and economic system has come to serve the interests of a tiny elite, vastly wealthier than the run of the population, operating through corporate control. The state itself exists to serve the interests of these corporations, guided by a political class largely devoid of ideological belief and [...]

The Comprehansive Spending Review announced today is designed to bring public spending back to the same level in real terms that it was in 2006/2007. I am going to write that again. The Comprehansive Spending Review announced today is designed to bring public spending back to the same level in real terms that it was [...]

The defence review is admitting the bleeding obvious – that there is no real danger of armed invasion of the UK, and that terrorism does not pose an “existential threat” to the UK and our way of life. That is a real advance, because Blair, Reid and Blunkett were determined to convince us that it [...]

Hillary Clinton is concerned that defence cuts in the UK will jeopardise our ability to carry out our NATO obligations. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/14/hillary-clinton-uk-defence-cuts Now NATO was founded to defend the North Atlantic region against advances by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. The danger of armed invasion by Russia is now minimal, and it is [...]

Munguin’s Republic on the Americans buying up Britain. Sounds like a bad investment to me. http://munguinsrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/07/standard-and-poor-predicts-american.html

Personally I think there is a legitimate distinction between the right to protest outside parliament and the right to camp outside parliament, and to that extent Boris is right. But here is an alternative view from The Curmudgeon: http://www.thecurmudgeonly.blogspot.com/

My unease at the Lib Dem coalition with the Conservatives is crystallising into real alarm. We hear today from Theresa May that the 28 day detention without charge is to be extended. Apparantly is being renewed six months at a time under the coalition as opposed to a year at a time under NuLab. That [...]

I remember having a passionate argument with John Pardoe about VAT in a pub during the Cambridge City by-election. Pardoe enjoyed Vince Cable levels of popularity as a liberal economic spokesman in those days – his flagship policy proposal was reducing income tax and increasing sales tax (sorry, too lazy to check if it was [...]

We all wait to see what the budget has in store. This is less fun than it used to be, as it has been heavily trailed that the personal tax allowance will be raised by £1,000 as a first stage towards lifting a very significant number of people out of tax altogether, and improving the [...]

While live-blogging the party leaders’ debates during the election I noted my suprise that Cameron was so firm on the banks, and particularly the need to split off casino banking from retail banking. I wondered if he really meant it. Well, yesterday’s Mansion House by Geore Osborne speech showed that Cameron didn’t mean it. Knocking [...]

With all government departments having to look at huge cuts, I thought I would write about what I know. These are the steps I would take to cut back radically on the FCO budget. 1) Make all Directors-General and Heads of Department Redundant Diplomats alternate in their careers between Whitehall and postings to Embassies, High [...]

I am truly sorry to say it, but UNESCO really is an appalling organisation. Good article here by Liberal Vision. http://www.liberal-vision.org/2010/06/07/shameful-un-need-reprimanding-by-the-coalition/ The links to Global Witness are well worth following up, too. I have a lot of time for Global Witness. UNESCO have put millions of UN money into “reconstruction” of Tamerlane monumental architecture in [...]

This goes back a few days, but makes some important points on schools, where Tory policies are potentially disastrous: http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-the-coalitions-education-policies-are-seriously-flawed-19852.html

Iain Dale deserves applause and support for taking on the appalling rich man’s thugs, Schillings, and publishing John Sweeney’s Rooney’s Gold. http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/06/rooneys-gold-publishing-tale.html You will recall it was Schillings who had this blog – and several others – taken down temporarily (permanently if they had their way) at the behest of convicted gangster and racketeer Alisher [...]

Prostitutes have to get murdered before they get treated by the media with any dignity. We need to consider carefully the lessons from the cruel exposure, yet again, of their vulnerability. Prostitution is massive in the UK. Estimates of the number of prostitutes varies, but the lowest serious estimate I can find is 30,000, while [...]

It is very difficult to look at the dissolution honours list for the Lords without retching. Lord Prescott, Lord Reid, Lord Blair of Stockwell Tube Station? Then there are the Tory donors. Floella Benjamin is the only redeeming feature. Indeed, I hope someone can find Brian Cant and put him in there too. But seriously, [...]