Peter Oborne writes for Middle East Eye.
It’s been a long journey for Imran Khan. He founded his political party, PTI (Pakistan Movement for Justice), in 1996, and for many years made no real progress. Many mocked him. The Guardian journalist Declan Walsh dismissed him as ‘a miserable politician’, whose ideas and affiliations had ‘swerved and skidded like a rickshaw in a
Until a few years ago, Pakistan was one of the most dangerous countries on earth. The tribal areas in the north were infested by the Taleban, whose bases stretched to within 100 miles of the capital, Islamabad. Western intelligence agencies feared that the Taleban could seize one of the country’s nuclear installations, then hold the
We’re republishing our ten most-read articles of 2015 and no8 is from Peter Oborne in defence of Ed Miliband. The Spectator has a proud tradition of running well-written features that go against the magazine’s own political sympathies and challenging conventional wisdom. In the end, Miliband lost – but on election day every opinion poll and bookmaker had him on
For the past few weeks, British newspapers have been informing their readers about two contrasting battles in the killing grounds of the Middle East. One is Mosul, in northern Iraq, where western reporters are accompanying an army of liberation as it frees a joyful population from terrorist control. The other concerns Aleppo, just a few
For the past few weeks, British news-papers have been informing their readers about two contrasting battles in the killing grounds of the Middle East. One is Mosul, in northern Iraq, where western reporters are accompanying an army of liberation as it frees a joyful population from terrorist control. The other concerns Aleppo, just a few
Most nights Saudi bombers fly low over the Yemeni capital of Sanaa dealing out random destruction. High up in the Yemeni mountains, Sanaa claims to be the oldest inhabited city in the world. Its old city, a Unesco world heritage site, is at least as unique, ancient and priceless as any western city. Many of
Last week rumours swirled round Zimbabwe that Robert Mugabe, the 92-year-old president, had either died or been incapacitated. The government banned demonstrations after Mugabe’s-presidential aircraft had been diverted in mid-air to Dubai during a scheduled journey to Singapore. Then the man himself turned up alive (though far from well) at Harare-airport, where he made a
There have been three great captains of Pakistan. The first was A.H. Kardar, the country’s first Test captain. Born in Lahore, and talent-spotted by the senior Nawab of Pataudi, Kardar played for India before Partition. He led Pakistan to victory over India in its second-ever Test match in Lucknow in 1952, and even more famously
Sir John Chilcot’s report into the Iraq invasion, due to be published on 6 July, is expected to highlight the novel structure of government created by New Labour following its landslide victory of 1997. As Tony Blair started to make the case for war, he began to distort the shape and nature of British government in
On its website the Foreign and Commonwealth Office claims that ‘we’re strengthening the Commonwealth as a focus for democratic practice and development. We’re working with the Commonwealth Secretariat to strengthen its institutions so it promotes human rights, democratic values and the rule of law.’ It continues: ‘we’re engaging with civil society across the Commonwealth.’ In
In their interview in the Christmas edition of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth asked the Prime Minister whether he now considered that his intervention in Libya had been a mistake. David Cameron accepted that matters could have gone better since the fall of Gaddafi, but insisted that ‘what we were doing was preventing a
I had been trying to get to Aleppo for ages, but was unable to do so because rebel activity had cut off the city from the outside world. Syrian government military successes at the start of January meant there was at last a safe road. I hired a driver, was allocated a government minder (very
In their interview in the Christmas edition of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth asked the Prime Minister whether he now considered that his intervention in Libya had been a mistake. David Cameron accepted that matters could have gone better since the fall of Gaddafi, but insisted that ‘what we were doing was preventing
Those who write letters and send them by post are a dying breed. I was fortunate to have served as a newspaper columnist and received a great many. Often eloquent, sometimes humorous, their breadth and depth of experience was wonderful. With the exception of letters that were racist or completely mad, I tried to answer
For the first time since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team six years ago, a Test match side has visited Pakistan. The Zimbabwe tourists, playing at the same Lahore stadium where the attack was mounted, were greeted with wild enthusiasm. Less well reported has been the fact that a team of English cricketers
Al Qaeda terrorists have never had good press. For sound reasons they are always represented as evil, nihilistic, faceless murderers. There are certain interesting signs this is starting to change. This is happening in part because the emergence of Isis has shown that there is something worse than Al Qaeda. It is in part because
The former leader of the Liberal Democrats Charles Kennedy has died at the age of 55. He was the party’s most successful leader in 80 years, winning 62 seats in 2005 general election following the Iraq war. On the eve of the 2002 Lib Dem conference, The Spectator’s then political editor Peter Oborne interviewed Kennedy
It was mid-October and Downing Street was in a panic. Lord Freud, the welfare minister, had been secretly recorded suggesting that disabled people could be paid less than the minimum wage. Labour demanded Freud should go. The No. 10 press office was briefing journalists that he would be out within hours. Craig Oliver, excitable Downing
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_12_Feb_2015_v4.mp3″ title=”Peter Oborne and Dan Hodges discuss Ed Miliband” startat=1343] Listen [/audioplayer]Most political commentators consider Ed Miliband a useless leader. In a narrow sense they are right. He is not very good at getting a positive press or eliciting the support of important outside voices in the media and the business community. Even small
Seven years ago Kevin Pietersen produced his first attempt at autobiography, Crossing the Boundary: The Early Years in My Cricketing Life. Atrociously written, it demonstrated no awareness of the world outside himself. This time round Mr Pietersen has taken the precaution of hiring an excellent ghost writer, David Walsh of the Sunday Times. It is
