In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: human rights

  • Navalny Speaks

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  • Ethics in UK Politics

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    Here below is the copy of a letter I’ve sent this week to Lord Evans of Weardale, Chair of the UK’s independent committee on standards in public life. By coincidence, just before Mr Johnson’s extraordinary contortions in the House of Commons two days ago, Lord Evans’ committee produced a report recommending certain improvements in the…

  • The Potent Appeal of the “Strong Model”

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      Why do certain behaviours, or opinions, or political policies, become popular at some point, where before they would have been rejected out of hand ? Why do certain approaches, or qualities of presentation, previously scorned, suddenly start to be given value ?  And do all such changes represent advance, or improvement ? No.  And…

  • Britain’s Return to Health

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      I want to talk about the British Labour Party which – despite everything – still occupies the ground I look to for the beginning of this nation’s regeneration and return to health. But “ground” is one thing ; the withered and stunted vegetation I see presently over-running and littering that ground, is another. To…

  • The History of the United Kingdom

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    Click here for a summary of this piece, consisting of just over 700 words. Are You Sitting Comfortably ? The history of the United Kingdom (whose every seam is under terrible stretch and strain just now) continues so fast, so scattered, so hurt, so incoherent, so unguided and ill-advised, that it is hard to keep up,…

  • Despatches to my Gazan Son

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    Justin C McIntosh has given his permission for his photograph above to be used for the cover of a long Turkish poem by Cahit Koytak, now published as a book with an English translation alongside. I am proud to have been one of the translators. The original Turkish poem is called Gazze Risalesi.  In English…

  • If the People is Sovereign, Lying to the People is High Treason

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    As 2016 comes to an end, I want to present an argument which I believe follows from the year’s events. Different elements of the argument have already been touched on here in recent posts. I must begin with language and those first words of St John’s Gospel. In the beginning was [and was always] the…