Author Archives: Damian Counsell

Communities, majorities, lobbies, and “The Taxpayers’ Alliance”

08Aug10 – 10:28 pm

A blog hosted on The Economist site, of all places, questions the name of a particularly noisy Right-wing UK special interest group — and counterparts in the US: ONE of the many things that irritate me is people putting themselves forward as self-appointed “spokesmen”, claiming to speak on behalf of enormous masses of other people. Examples are everywhere: […]

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“Hugo Boss”

07Aug10 – 10:31 pm

In Canada’s National Post, Christopher Hitchens reflects on the increasingly bizarre behaviour of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chávez. I have embedded a link to the Washington Post article to which Hitchens refers: Recent accounts of Hugo Chavez’s politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they […]

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“What’s the big deal about it?”

14Feb10 – 8:53 pm

For years now, Mick Hartley’s blog has often linked to and summarized journalism that covers the horror and absurdity of life under the North Korean regime. Not only are its subjects prisoners, but the story of their suffering is hidden from the outside world, both by the paranoia and secrecy of the country’s rulers and […]

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Conspiracy Theory Round-Up

22Jan10 – 8:38 pm

After delivering a speech at the “General Conference for the Support of Al-Quds”, Mahathir Mohamad, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia shared his suspicions that the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US were staged to provide “an excuse to mount attacks on the Muslim world” with a press conference: I am not sure now that Muslim terrorists […]

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‘What Next for the “Decent” Left?’

25Sep09 – 9:23 pm

Martin Bright writes about supporters of the Euston Manifesto in his Spectator blog: Earlier this month I was asked to address an audience about what future there might be for the “decent left”. For those unfamiliar for the term this is the tendency on the left generally associated with backing the Iraq War (though some of […]

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New email blockade by Iranian authorities

21Sep09 – 3:12 pm

In the aftermath of the most recent wave of protests in Iran, The inventive tactics of Iran’s opposition continue to deny the Tehran regime the uncontested power it seeks. The result is that the post-election political contest over the future of Iran is reaching a pivotal stage, says Nazenin Ansari. there have been reports that Yahoo and […]

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R2P not R2I

27Jul09 – 2:05 pm

The latest edition of The Economist contains an excellent article about attempts to undermine the UN commitment (such as it is) to the “responsibility to protect” (R2P). It contains some important history: R2P is certainly not—to judge by a careful reading of its history—a mere ploy by rich and powerful countries to poke their noses […]

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Iran Anniversary Demo

07Jul09 – 8:01 pm
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New UK Cabinet member and peer Glenys Kinnock speaks on the Responsibility To Protect

03Jul09 – 8:36 am

Most — almost all — of the media’s coverage of the ennoblement of Glenys Kinnock to permit her to become Europe Minister in the UK government has focused on the court politics. Glenys Kinnock was a Labour MEP and is the wife of former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, himself a former European Commissioner. Thanks to longstanding general public skepticism […]

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More than the sum

22Jun09 – 10:23 pm

Today, for the first time, the powerful Guardian Council of the Constitution, responsible for supervising the conduct of the recent disputed presidential election in Iran, acknowledged irregularities in more than 50 constituencies. The actual “irregularity” in these 50 cities is that over 100% of those eligible to vote are recorded as having done so. It […]

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