World

A retired civil servant of my acquaintance usually provides a telling perspective on the administrative affairs of the day. We discussed the Heathrow row recently. He said that it was ‘right’ to delay any decision until 2015 so that proper investigations could be made and considered. If he thought that the Tories would not dare break their no-runway manifesto pledge in this parliament, then he did not mention it. For him, it was a question of process and nothing else. The policy not to have a policy on Heathrow until 2015 certainly exudes a bureaucratic air, compounding the sense that this government has fallen captive to a conservative civil service. But

US party conventions aren’t just about that year’s elections. Sure, the biggest speeches are from the Presidential nominees, their spouses and their running mates — but plenty of others take to the podiums as well. And while the content of their remarks may be all about beating the other guys in November, a fair few will have an eye on grabbing the nomination themselves next time around. If you doubt the power of a big convention speech, just look back to Obama’s keynote address in 2004, which catapulted the then-state senator into national stardom and towards the presidency. Indeed, perhaps the most significant feature of last week’s Republican convention was

I took the opportunity yesterday to catch up with the BBC’s new comedy ‘Citizen Khan’. Focusing on a Muslim family based in my hometown of Birmingham, it lampoons the trials and tribulations of the self-appointed, self-important, and self-obsessed Mr Khan. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of British Muslim communities will recognise the basic truths on which the programme’s characters are premised. Alia, daughter of the eponymous hero, seems to have provoked the most controversy. Alia is a shrewd young girl, doting before her parents but defiant behind their backs. There are complaints she portrays a disrespectful daughter, affronting not just her myopic parents but also a stylised vision of

I’m indebted to John Rentoul for drawing my attention to this report of a talk given by Karl Rove to mega donors at the Republican National Convention. Rove is an advisor to American Crossroads, a Republican fundraising organisation; and, having been one of Dubya’s chiefs, he remains a vital strategic voice in the party. He explained how Mitt Romney might win: “’The people we’ve got to win in this election, by and large, voted for Barack Obama,’ Rove said, in a soothing, professorial tone, explaining why the campaign hadn’t launched more pointed attacks on the president’s character. ‘If you say he’s a socialist, they’ll go to defend him. If you

Squatting in residential properties became a criminal offence today under the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, with a penalty of 6 months’ imprisonment or a £5,000 fine. The new offence applies where a person knowingly trespasses in residential premises with the intention of living there. Potentially it could happen to any of us who own or rent a house or flat. Some people even fall prey to squatters when they simply leave the country for an annual holiday. Justice minister Crispin Blunt told parliament that the new law ‘will bring relief to those whose lives are blighted by having their homes occupied.’ This comment demonstrates two fundamental

It is not uncommon for new leaders of new nations to flex their muscles. And in spite of its millennia of history as a nation, this is precisely where Egypt now finds itself. It has hosted its first free and fair democratic elections, and, for the first time, has a civilian occupying the Presidency. In this new nation, reborn for the umpteenth time, Mohamed Mursi is busy showing off the Brotherhood’s sinews. He landed in Tehran today, a move the Ahmadinejad government had touted as a diplomatic coup. No Egyptian leader has visited the country in more than three decades, and relations have been little more than frosty at the

‘The last time I spoke at a convention, it turned out I was in the wrong place.’ Artur Davis spoke last night at what he now believes is the right venue for him: the Republican National Convention. It did not take him long to reconcile himself to Republicans angry that they were welcoming a man who had provided the official second in favour of Barack Obama’s candidacy at the Democratic Convention four years ago. Davis has a most unusual personal story. Like most African Americans, he had been a Democrat all his life, and served in the House of Representatives for eight years until 2011. In 2010, he campaigned, unsuccessfully,

I returned from holiday to discover that the silly season has turned into something much more serious. The daily list of horrors from Syria, the Eurozone crisis and the terrifying state of the UK economy: they had all been there when I left (for Greece by the way, where people are genuinely scared about the future — stockpiling food and preparing for civil conflict in some cases). But the Olympic fiesta atmosphere seems to have been replaced by something darker following George Galloway’s moronic comments about the Assange case. There are plenty of men of the Left whose sexual politics don’t bear much scrutiny, but Galloway really is the prize

There was a news report on BBC South East last week expressing outrage that two people had not been arrested and charged for posting allegedly ‘homophobic’ comments on Twitter about the gay fans of the football club Brighton and Hove Albion. The reporter was incensed that charges had not been brought and the miscreants duly banged up. She harangued some poor copper who patiently explained that, under the circumstances, there might have been better ways of dealing with this incident than referral to the courts. I ought to point out that the miscreants were aged 15 and 16 years old; the police simply had a word with the parents. But

When the International Criminal Court (ICC) was set up ten years ago, it was meant to make the world a safer place. The Court and the various UN war crimes tribunals were supposed to pursue and punish war-criminal dictators as a warning to all the others. The idea may have been a noble one but, as Syria now demonstrates, it has proved hideously flawed. Far from deterring brutal dictators, the prospect of ending up like Slobodan Milosevic or Charles Taylor has persuaded some of the worst dictators that they only have one choice: to fight it out to the end. The Assads are only the latest family to prove this

At The American Conservative, Noah Millman argues that Barack Obama’s administration is the kind of small-c conservative leadership Thomas Friedman and other so-called centrists have been asking for: [T]he Obama Administration has been a quintessentially small-”c” conservative one, in that it has tried its best to preserve the status quo in just about every area. Its health care plan aimed to achieve universality with minimal disruption to existing insurance arrangements (which is why it was a good deal for insurance companies). Its response to the financial crisis was centered on securing the financial position of the large banks. Its response to the recession centered on the combination of tax cuts