The supreme example of the trend is Sarah Palin. Last year she was catapulted from the obscurity of a first-term governor of Alaska to instant celebrity as the Republicans' vice-presidential candidate. No matter that, after a dazzling start, she came a cropper in that role, and subsequently resigned as governor. Today, there is less escape from her than ever, as best-selling author and darling of the right, a balloon floating in the overheated air where US politics and media in the early 21st ( Read more... )
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It seems surprising that Sir John and his colleagues had not identified the gaps in public knowledge, and called witnesses ? or simply asked for papers ? that they thought might be able to fill them. Perhaps they are coming to that bit. Perhaps this was just a bit of throat-clearing, a sort of "Previously, on Iraq War Conspiracy Theories...".

Where, then, are there gaps in our knowledge? Certainly not in the intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. All four previous ( Read more... )
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But remember that these doubters are the same red-faced sceptics that will rant on about how human-caused global warming is a conspiracy, without ever explaining why nearly all climate scientists should want to invent such a thing.

Here, you will read a more evidence-based view. The Independent on Sunday believes that climate change is a planetary emergency. Next weekend we shall be publishing a special report on the eve of the Copenhagen conference explaining, in what we hope is ( Read more... )
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The trouble is that we have become bored. With Mr Gordon Brown limping along, there is nothing to divert us from the long winter nights that lie ahead until the flowers emerge for the spring election. What more agreeable diversion than to speculate about a hung Parliament?

The phrase is of comparatively recent origin. It derives from the first 1974 election, when Edward Heath tried to hang on to office on the basis that the Conservatives had won more votes than Labour, though Labour had ( Read more... )
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Two controversial new additions to the teaching curriculum were unveiled last week ? all pupils from five to 15 will receive lessons about violence against women, and Ed Balls announced he wanted to junk the traditional teaching of subjects like geography and history in favour of broad themes. Forget about the Tudors or the Second World War ? now kids will be learning about "social understanding" and climatic change. In the right hands, this could be a real chance to engage with pupils and ignite ( Read more... )
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Even more alienating for the British public is the democratic deficit attached to our military deployments. Most glaringly this happens at international level ? the real decisions about the deployment of British forces abroad since the Falklands are made in Washington (or Crawford, Texas). Scepticism about the "special relationship" took hold here thanks to a disdain for President Bush. But to be fair to him, Bush at least gave the appearance of involving the British in decision-making. Now that ( Read more... )
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Mr Cameron's departure, after some brief remarks about his commitment to "progressive conservatism", surprised the 300 guests, who included many of the best brains in the political and think-tank world. His exit was symbolic. He wanted to be seen to be associated with fresh thinking from outside the usual Tory box ? but not too associated. So he pleaded a busy diary and did not stay to be asked questions about which of Mr Blond's ideas he agreed with. Breaking up the supermarkets and other cartels? ( Read more... )
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But it is not surprising that polytechnics (or central institutions in Scotland) have occasionally blown up, nor that "new universities" still might. The problem is management structure.

The polytechnics had a managerial hierarchy inherited from technical colleges (ultimately, from schools) and passed on to the new universities. The director was hired as such, as were heads of department.

In old universities, these were not posts, but offices, held by people whose ( Read more... )
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"Such facts," says Mr Miles, "are not usually mentioned in the mainstream British and American media." (This column has been a lonely exception to the rule.)

Sure enough, to prove the ambassador's point, he was swiftly denounced by a leading representative of the mainstream media, The Times. "Oliver Miles's contribution to the debate is extraordinary and disgraceful," proclaimed an editorial on Wednesday. "The members of the panel are eminent in scholarship and public service. They should ( Read more... )
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Forgiveness, I wanted to say, isn't something you order, like a double macchiato and a chocolate muffin. You don't bark your request and get your instant get-out-of-jail free card, your "no worries, mate" or, if you're English, and not 15, or not pretending to be 15, your "please don't worry about it, it's all absolutely fine". Fine for you, maybe, with your slate-wiped-free clear conscience and your great-I-can-do-it-again spring in your step. But for me? I don't think so. And doesn't it, by ( Read more... )
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And in the world of international summitry, no show is bigger than the United Nations Climate Change summit in Copenhagen, scheduled to begin on 7 December.

In recent weeks, world leaders have been busy downplaying public expectations about Copenhagen's chances of producing a successor to the Kyoto protocol. But the mood has changed in recent days and for a specific reason: politicians began to talk numbers.

First there came an offer from the Obama administration to cut America's emissions ( Read more... )
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It should be a tragedy, but for me I'm afraid it's been a relief. News of its demise has coincided with a growing awareness that over the past few years I have become dependent on Wikipedia, a wiki-addict. The way I use Wikipedia is compulsive and continuous. Its tendrils have grown up around and into my brain like ivy, and like ivy they've begun to sap the energy from the living thing beneath.

It was always the intention of internet evangelists that the worldwide web ( Read more... )
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For the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, the inquiry already seems like a sideline. The centre's main gig yesterday was a medical conference for which you received a big white and red badge. For Iraq, you were handed a more discreet black and cream badge, on presentation of ID and your signature, before progressing through an X-ray security machine on the second floor.

Perhaps because it was Friday, the Great British public was hardly jostling for space. The queues ( Read more... )
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I hit upon this equation while watching the latest Coen Brothers movie ? A Serious Man. It will tell you something about the film, or at least my reaction to it, that I could take time off from the visuals to do algebra. M-I=Ad2. Movie minus Interest equals Attention Deficit squared.

In fact that's not true. The film didn't fail to interest me. Everything the Coen Brothers make interests and intrigues me, allowing that you can be interested and intrigued and still left indifferent in your ( Read more... )
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Why, I still have my reporter's notebook covered in oil spots from Kuwait, after Saddam had set the oil fields afire in 1991. Then there's the small packet in which visitors to the Fisk Memorial Library will one day find a Havana cigar ring marked "The first cigar Mohamed Heikal gave me after 29 years of friendship!" I know Mohamed, Egypt's worthiest journalist and writer, reads this column ? and will appreciate the above. Long life to him.

Recently, however, I've been ( Read more... )
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Alan Johnson, like the courts, has merely decided that punishment in the US will not be contrary to the European Convention bar on "inhuman and degrading" treatment. That may well be so: Americans are not inhuman and imprisonment in Virginia may be no more degrading than imprisonment here. But our constitutional prohibition on punishment that is "cruel and unusual" raises a different question.

It became part of our law at the time of the Glorious Revolution because of public outrage at ( Read more... )
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When I first went to central Africa, I met a woman exactly the same age as myself called Marie Abawede, who had given birth to four children out in the rainforests. The first three had all died of measles. Her last baby was sick, and she was convinced he had "the killer" too. "If he dies, I will die," she said, plainly, without tears.

In the year 2000, there were 396,000 women like this in Africa, watching their babies waste away pointlessly. Today, the figure has fallen by an incredible ( Read more... )
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