Blair-Berlusconi: You can bring your friends
Giving Lo Scroccone a bit of Googlejuice

The Friday Thing set free
The mighty weekly satirical email magazine is now available for free.

David Goodhart on “progressive nationalism”: the acceptable face of the “nasty” tendency amongst new Labour’s home secretaries?

The second part of this will sadly be delayed for a week. Sorry: I’ve been unexpectedly called to the seaside. Thirty comments so far, with tons of stuff I’d forgotten, on the first part. We could really use a few more from anyone out there who hasn’t yet had a go. All in a good cause. Thanks.

How the rot set in for Blair’s reputation Anthony King finds only 33% still believe that the invasion of Iraq was right. And only 32% “believed Mr Blair had told the truth as he saw it.”

I hesitate to add to the thousands of words already written about the Euston Manifesto. We had two good posts here yesterday, but the best so far is probably this one. Anyway, I hesitate essentially because I only read it today, and the damn thing is deathly dull, a collection of anodyne pronouncements, platitudes, and mostly a whole bunch of self-justifying shite that just about anything with a pulse could sign up to. Wet western wank, as the catchphrase goes.

So, I only stop by to pose one question I haven’t seen asked yet: could one be “pro” the Iraq War, situated vaguely on the political liberal-left, and yet firmly agin’ the Manifesto? Read More

The politics of American revivalism
…or the SWP history of the modern world

Galloway says murder of Blair would be justified

Not my phrase, but one borrowed from Brian Taylor, political editor of the BBC in Scotland and author of books such as The Road to the Scottish Parliament. He was giving a lecture on Scotland and the EU at Edinburgh Law School, and in that context identified three weak points of devolution: the soft underbelly. Relations with the European Union; England; and money.
 

I’ll deal with each briefly in turn.

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