For the Guardian’s Comment is free, “Ruling sends message on control orders” is an article I wrote following a Court of Appeal ruling that two former control order detainees — AE, an Iraqi national and an imam in the north of England, and AF, a dual British/Libyan national, who was born in Derby — are entitled to compensation for the three years that they were held on control orders, a form of house arrest to which British nationals and foreign nationals are subjected, on the basis of secret...

Great (and cheap!) new offering from Philosophy Football, in the run up to September’s hugely important Gaza convoy:

‘In the 1970s and 1980s Soweto became a global watchword not simply for the murderous brutality of the racist Apartheid regime but also the heroic resistance of the South African people. Solidarity with Soweto became a huge, popular international movement which helped isolate Apartheid.

Today Gaza requires that same wave of support. As part of Philosophy Football’s contribution towards this...

As Mike Law mentioned on his blog two weeks ago, there have been a number of rumours circulating about the abrupt departure of Joe Duckworth, Newham council’s former chief executive. This version of events, in the current issue of Private Eye, seems the most plausible of the explanations I have heard so far:

Shameless bullshit from Newham council about the sudden enforced departure of its £240,000-plus-a-year chief executive Joe "Vera" Duckworth.

Newham released a platitudinous statement: "Two successful...

In the 1970s and 1980s Soweto became a global watchword not simply for the murderous brutality of the racist Apartheid regime but also the heroic resistance of the South African people. Solidarity with Soweto became a huge, popular international movement which helped isolate Apartheid.
Today Gaza requires that same wave of support.
As part of Philosophy Football’s contribution towards this they have produced a delightfully simple T-shirt design on a non-profit making basis.
They are actively supporting...

David Cameron is (or was) in Turkey yesterday and he must have pleased his Turkish hosts with all he had to say. For example, The Independent reports that he made a "ferocious attack on Israel":

In comments that will play well in Turkey, Mr Cameron frankly addressed the situation in Gaza. Speaking to business leaders in Ankara, Mr Cameron condemned Israel’s land and sea blockade of Gaza, aimed at weakening the Islamist group Hamas, which seized control of the strip in 2007.

"Let me be clear that the...

Samuel Brittan, Financial Times columnist: ‘The trick of the British establishment is to turn discussion from “whether to” into “how to” questions. The media debate is on which government services to cut or on the balance between spending cuts and tax increases.

Once the discussion has been channelled into these trenches the establishment has won. The real argument, however, should be on whether we need unparalleled fiscal austerity or not.’

As Brittan observes, there are basically two ways of...

The Guardian reports on opposition to arts funding cuts in the North East:

‘Artists and arts chiefs from north-east England joined forces yesterday to warn of the dangerous impact of "deep or hasty" funding cuts.

The north-east has been a cultural success story over the past decade, from the arrival of the Baltic for contemporary art and the Sage for music to theatrical success at Northern Stage and Live Theatre.

Yesterday playwright Lee Hall, who wrote Billy Elliot and the Broadway-bound The Pitmen...

The Washington Post has just made available a letter from Guantánamo (PDF), written by Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who was just 15 years old when he was seized in Afghanistan in July 2002. The letter, to one of Khadr’s Canadian lawyers, Dennis Edney, was written on May 26, and touches on aspects of Khadr’s impending trial by Military Commission — including his constant desire to fire his lawyers, which surfaced in recent pre-trial hearings, and which I discussed in two articles, Defiance in...

Joe Glenton’s moving speech at last night’s Stop the War public rally in central London:

One of the new measures introduced with the creation of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) on April Fools Day in 2004 was the ability of the Commission to allow the public to witness, in certain cases, internal police disciplinary hearings. This was included within section 30(5) of The Police (Conduct) Regulations 2004, which says:

"Where… the Commission considers that because of its gravity or other exceptional circumstances it would be in the public interest to do so, the Commission...

Around the time of the last flotilla – the massacred one – Richard Irvine had an interesting article in the Guardian. Richard (personal interest disclosure: he’s also from Ireland) was pointing out the similarities between the Mavi Marmara and The Exodus. The latter was the ship taking Jewish refugees to Palestine in 1947; it provoked international outrage when British forces boarded it, killing several passengers and preventing it from reaching Palestine.

While the comparison was clever and the...

I see the iconic ‘Get Carter’ car park whenever I look out of my bedroom window. I live in a riverside flat, but there’s no view of the Tyne or its seven much-photographed bridges. I’m on the side of the block with Britain’s most famous multi-storey car park looming over it (which helps keep the rent down, of course).

I can’t complain, really - the modern architectural gems that are the Sage, Baltic and Millennium Bridge are all in easy walking distance. Newcastle city centre is only slightly further...

Last week, in the first part of this two-part series, I began looking at how the Conservative-dominated D.C. Circuit Court has responded to the rulings in the District Court regarding the habeas petitions of the prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, where, to date, 38 out of 53 cases have been won by the prisoners. In my article, I examined the first three appeals considered by the Circuit Court, and noted that, although none were contentious (to the extent that they were appeals against habeas petitions...

I had no idea that Palestinian representatives, even not very representative ones, had no right to fly their flag in washington. See this from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

The Obama administration will allow the PLO office in Washington to fly the Palestinian flag and assume the title of "delegation."

The change in status comes with no enhancement in diplomatic status, U.S. officials said.

The new privileges for the Palestine Liberation Organization office do not mean the representation has "any...

The Sauce persuasively made the case for Counterfire (and, naturally, The Sauce), The Third Estate mentioned some favourite leftie blogs, and Phil BC cheekily initiated a ‘Top 100 Worst Blogs’ contest.

Yes, it’s the Total Politics annual blog poll, where you have a special opportunity to show your affection for Luna17. In case you are unclear about the merits of this blog (heaven forbid), here’s a gentle reminder: 12 posts, arranged chronologically, published over the last 3 months. Left-wing blogging of...