BBC World has just lead its 9am headline with “More protests in Kabul over the inadvertent buning of the Koran by NATO troops”. The word “inadvertent” has been interpolated since the 8am headlines. Who was responsible for its introduction? It seems to me simply untrue that the Korans were burnt “inadvertently”. The BBC have just [...]

I am now at my Accra home after some travels in Africa. There is still a sanity and courtesy in the African countryside – even in drought affected Mali and Burkina Faso – that is refreshing to the soul after London. It is a linguistic irony that great cities are so uncivil. There is no [...]

You may have to trust me on this, but the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is a terrific organisation that does remarkably good work, considering that it works for member states as diverse, and governments as severally ill-intentioned, as the United States, [...]

Wonderful bit of balanced reporting from the BBC’s Frank Gardner. He said of Bahrain at 5.42pm on BBC News: “The Shiite majority does suffer discrimination, but the rest of the population is getting fed up with the continual disruption and demonstrations.” I remember similar arguments during apartheid: “The black majority does suffer discrimination, but the [...]

I was the answer to a question on University Challenge yesterday! Thanks to all who sent me messages to let me know. If anyone remembers the actual question I should be interested to hear. Apparently none of the students had ever heard of me. From surprising mentions to surprising non-mentions. The Guardian wrote an excellent [...]

I am wasting enormous energy lately in an absolute nightmare of visa applications. The insolence of office is to be seen in its most extreme forms, everywhere around the world, in those connected with the organised atavism of immigration control. I was chatting with a charming young lady, one of those wealthy young women who [...]

The headlines all say that the Bank of England has pumped another £50 billion into the economy in the third round of quantitive easing. In fact, the money will not get far into the economy. It is given to the banks and other financial sector companies, and evidence from the previous £250 billion worth of [...]

Recently I have been plagued by coincidences. I was talking on a train about someone I hadn’t seen for thirty years, and then met them coming out of the train toilet. Had I subconsciously seen them on a platform and not consciously registered it? I don’t know, but coincidences of that nature have been occurring [...]

I have discovered unpublished criteria used to compile Gus O’Donnell’s official “report” into the Fox/Werritty affair. I was told this yesterday by the office of the Permanent Under Secretary in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Werritty’s meetings with foreign or British officials abroad were included. Meetings which occurred in the UK were only included if [...]

Diary entry 27 Sep 2010 Diary entry 8 Sep 2009 Diary entry 6 Feb 2011 The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has finally, this evening, released the Gould/Werritty diary entries under the Freedom of Information Act. The three links above are the diary entries for their meetings on 8 September 2009, 27 September 2010 and 6 [...]

Diary entry 16 Jun 2010 – email exchange

I was awoken just before 8am this morning by LBC asking me to contribute to the Nick Ferrari show. I had time to brush my teeth and then I was on. I greatly dislike these formats that give you a minute to express a view, and I frequently turn down LBC requests. However they generally [...]

An important rule of good blogging is not to comment on matters which you do not understand. An important rule of my own life is not to try to understand everything, as no one man can. I have never tried to master the intricacies of Syrian internal politics, (or Lebanese for that matter). Assad senior [...]

It is now four days and three postal deliveries since the FCO emailed me saying that they were sending me the Gould/Werritty diary entries by post, together with a covering letter – and something else of which the very existence is explosive news. But still, this has not actually arrived. I know that there has [...]

For saying a black man did it and ran away. In other news Frank Lampard tipped to be new Energy Secretary.

After yesterday’s blog post I was contacted by the FCO and I now know the reason the FCO was trying to conceal the diary entries for the Gould-Werritty meetings. The answer is absolutely stunning, but I have to wait for documents the FCO is sending me by post before I reveal it.

Evidence continues to mount that, rather than simply pursuing commercial interests with then Defence Secretary Liam Fox, Adam Werritty was involved centrally in working with the British and Israeli intelligence services to try to engineer war against Iran. His official contact in all this was Matthew Gould, now British Ambassador to Israel. Gould met with [...]

“Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over GIRoA [the Afghan government], usually as a result of government corruption, ethnic bias and lack of connection with local religious and tribal leaders”. That is a direct quote from a NATO report. This blog has been telling you for six years that the Afghan government rigged its elections, [...]

Personally I don’t care if he is called His Holy Magnificence Viceroy Goodwin of the Water of Leith. The Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Battenberg familiy three times offered to honour me (LVO, OBE and CVO) and three times I politely refused. I did not think my worth as an individual would be enhanced by being covered in bling by [...]

The law is not blind in this country – “joint enterprise” is used almost exclusively against young black men. But I can see no reason why the principle of joint enterpirse should not apply equally to those who set the policy under which people were rendered to be tortured in Libya, rather than merely to [...]