As the Chancellor spreads the cash, seeking to buttress falling Tory support, I’m minded of the mantra preached by unionists at the referendum that the strength of the UK was the “pooling and sharing” it afforded. Assets pooled and resource shared, or so we were led to believe.But how’s that going with energy? The oil and gas which we were told… Read more »
The rioting around 5th November was disgraceful. It was also unprecedented. I recall when I served as Justice Secretary meeting officers undergoing such training. I also met other officers who had been either south of the border or in Northern Ireland providing support when policing there was in danger of being overwhelmed by civil disturbances. But I never imagined that… Read more »
Recently asked if I’d met Suella Braverman, I’m sure the person asking was expecting me to compare the former Home Secretary to Cruella De Ville. But I said that I had but that she’d come across as both affable and personable which was not the answer they’d expected. It’s a view perhaps even harder for some to appreciate given some… Read more »
With Parliament returning from a brief break, I’ll again be supporting the calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. A humanitarian pause just doesn’t go far enough. With Remembrance Sunday approaching we can all recall tales of Christmas truces between troops in the trenches. But Gaza is an attack upon a civilian area even if Hamas fighters are located there. How… Read more »
It’s a ceasefire that’s required in Gaza not a humanitarian pause. The latter’s simply weasel words and a cop out from what’s needed to avoid genocide. It’s a justification to continue the appalling Israel/US policy of indiscriminate attacks upon a civilian area masked by an assertion that it’s really to destroy Hamas. Yet the facts disclose that in the latter it will fail and in the former its succeeding but at an appalling price in lost lives,… Read more »
Ash Regan’s defection was a major boost for Alba and another blow to a beleaguered SNP. It met with a churlish response from the First Minister who can be cut some slack given pressures he’s under with family in the Gaza hell. But he’ll need to be careful that his image of bonhomie isn’t seen as just a cover for… Read more »
The horror unfolding in the Middle East puts many issues in this country into perspective. However, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on the level of destitution in this country was both staggering and shameful. Poverty is of course relative and what is faced here’s nothing to what’s endured in the developing world or the plight facing many in Gaza. But… Read more »
Time was when war in Europe seemed unthinkable but then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For a time, it was never off our screens and the lands plight on everyone’s lips. Now the carnage in Gaza dominates not just media reporting but political interests. Other than an atrocity, and even then, in the margins, Ukraine has almost become the forgotten… Read more »
Gaza dominated yet again. What’s happening there’s appalling. The protection of women and children in conflict’s longstanding not just within the Geneva Accords and other rules brought in after horrific world wars. St Adomnum, the Abbot of Iona, and better known as Columba’s biographer promulgated the “Laws of the Innocents” as long ago as 697AD. That was in relation to… Read more »
The idea of protecting civilians in conflict is longstanding, not just through the Geneva Accords and other international rules established following horrific world wars. Some 1,300 years ago, the protection of women and children was invoked by St Adomnan of Iona, noted as St Columba’s biographer. In 697 AD at Birr, Ireland, he promulgated the “Law of the Innocents” to try… Read more »