Iraq war
Ambitious, bold and confusing: BBC4’s Corridors of Power – Should America Police the World? reviewed
Narrated by Meryl Streep, Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? announced the scale of its ambition straight away.…
One damned thing after another: Britain’s crisis-ridden century so far
The Iraq war, the financial crisis, Brexit and Covid have seen many prime ministers blown off course. Will Keir Starmer be any luckier than his predecessors?
Was I right about Iraq?
Back in March there was a glut of pieces about the 2003 Iraq war. The 20th anniversary seemed to much…
Bush is leading us to tragedy (2002)
It’s 20 years since the clamour for the invasion of Iraq was at its loudest. Boris Johnson, The Spectator’s then…
Colin Powell: A great man – and a failure
My memory of Colin Powell feels personal, even though we were 6000 miles apart at the time. I was in…
Incoherent and conspiracy-fuelled: Adam Curtis’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head reviewed
‘History,’ wrote Edward Gibbon, ‘is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.’ In…
Joe Biden’s endless wars
In just over a week, the Empire hopes to strike back. Joe Biden personifies the foreign policy of endless war…
Why great speeches are made for stage and screen
Curious thing, writer’s block. If you believe it exists. Terry Pratchett didn’t. ‘There’s no such thing,’ he said. ‘It was…
Sumptuous and very promising: A Suitable Boy reviewed
Nobody could argue that Andrew Davies isn’t up for a challenge. He’d also surely be a shoo-in for Monty Python’s…
Katharine Gun: the spy who tried to stop the Iraq war
In his memoir of office, Decision Points, George W. Bush writes about going to see Tony Blair in the Azores…
The Cheneys have always put war first and America last
Donald Trump has called the Iraq war the ‘worst single mistake’ in US history. Most Americans, including our military, agree…
To win, the Democrats need to be more like Trump
Here is the tragedy of the Democratic party in 2019: its partisans are left to hope that personal hatred of…
Brexit, George Osborne, and the art of post-factual politics
The Chancellor and PM are using every dirty trick in the Blairite book to win a Remain vote
Obama’s wrong. Americans should back Brexit – and so should you
President Obama thinks it’s in all our interests for you to remain part of the EU. This is why he’s wrong
You can’t forget what Will Self says - even if you wish you could
It lasted for just a few seconds but was such a graphic illustration of the statistics behind the bombing campaign…
The Baroque composer who was a world music pioneer
On Private Passions this week the writer Amitav Ghosh gave us a refreshingly different version of what has become a…
Forget Chilcot. Here’s the inquiry we really need
What we really need is an inquiry into why so many of us are so eager to support ‘humanitarian’ wars
Jeremy Corbyn’s debt to Silvio Berlusconi
I’m going off Jeremy Corbyn. He seems more and more pleased with himself by the minute. But I understand why…
Mercenaries could transform the fight against Isis – if we let them
Private military contractors have done wonders against Boko Haram. They could against Isis, too
We Are Many reviewed: does anyone think this anti-Iraq War film will change anything?
Big-screen documentaries never change the world. Blackfish has not shortened the queues to see maltreated killer whales leap through hoops…
The populist outsider who really could beat Hillary Clinton (clue: it’s not Elizabeth Warren)
Washington DC Bored American reporters are pining for a Democratic primary challenger to step up against Hillary Clinton in…
Tony Judt: a man of paradox who made perfect sense
Tony Judt was not only a great historian, he was also a great essayist and commentator on international politics. Few…
Will Marti Pellow attract enough tipsy hen parties to Evita to flog all 18,000 seats?
Tim and Andy are back. Their monster hit Evita opens the fully refurbed and re-primped Dominion Theatre, which is built…
The Birmingham ‘Trojan Horse plot’ is — like WMD — a neocon fantasy
I can remember where I was when Colin Powell presented to the United Nations his evidence for the existence of…
