Ex-Iranian President Condemns Bin Laden
Khatami at Harvard

Rachel North: How mad is Tony Blair?
From knobbly-kneed Boy Scout to Wizard of Oz manque in nine short years.

When Tom Watson MP, political blogger extraordinaire, signed on as an assistant government whip in September 2004, there was some cynicism about whether he’d be able to hang on to his reputation as an independent voice. After all, how can someone whose job it is to enforce the government line possibly provide retain their freedom to express themselves? The Guardian‘s Ros Taylor went so far as to produce her own extracts from Watson’s future posts:

If you could out someone as a treacherous hypocrite on this blog, would you?
That’s what I was asking myself on the fast new train from Worcester Shrub Hill to London this morning. (Thanks, Darling!) Can’t wait, really.
Posted by tomwatson at 05:45PM | Comments | TrackBack. Read More

Sharpener readers with good memories may recollect that there is a certain common theme to my posts. They all have something to do with citizenship and passports (in a rather formal sense). This one is no different. It’s about David Hicks, the Australian detainee in Guantanamo Bay, who discovered belatedly that he was entitled to UK Citizenship by descent (via his mother). Read More

Albania to employ Ex-Homeland Security chief
New job for new mates

Banksy sticks it to Paris
Hilton pranking and His Master’s Voice

I’m sorry but I just don’t buy it.

A group of prominent MPs, alarmed at the rise of anti-semitism in Britain, will accuse some left-wing activists and Muslim extremists this week of using criticism of Israel as ‘a pretext’ for spreading hatred against British Jews.

The charge is made in a hard-hitting report – by MPs from all three major political parties – which will be unveiled at a Downing Street meeting with Tony Blair on Thursday.
…
Though emphasising the right of people to criticise or protest against Israeli government actions, it says ‘rage’ over Israeli policies has sometimes ‘provided a pretext’ for anti-semitism.

Read More

Is the only thing to look forward to the past?

History is a pretty place. Sure enough, the fields were soaked with blood, inequality was worse than it is in modern-day Brazil, life expectancy was about 25 and the streets were plagued by, well, plague, but it was populated almost entirely with heroes. Read More

Thus spake France’s Minister for European Affairs, Catherine Colonna, giving her opinion of the state of the EU to the assembled ranks of the French Ambassadorial elite. Packed with (if we’re honest, fairly astute) criticisms of the current way the EU works, this seems to be a new approach from France, the country which more than any other has driven European integration and reform during the last half century. Read More

Archbishop Cranmer, although a dab hand at being burned alive, is a relative newcomer to UK blogging. He must be good, as he’s been namechecked in the Sharpener’s New Blood Roundup – although he’s perhaps a little extremist and religious for my taste.

However, one Cranmer post is so monumentally weird I felt the need to tackle it head-on, not for its ideological slant (arguing against faith-based positions is among the most futile tasks known to humanity) but for its relationship with fact – and also because it gave me a chance to use economic data to address a couple of bizarre EUphobic myths. Read More