Current Affairs

It’s morning in America, in at least the astronomical sense. John Kerry is about to concede the presidential election to President Bush, after a strong campaign that was just not quite strong enough to unseat an entrenched incumbent. The strong uptick in turnout was very welcome – it is plain

The elections in Ukraine have not got off to a good start.

How do the moral majority see the rest of us?

If President Bush wins, it will be interesting to see what happens to the nature of anti-Americanism in other parts of the world. At the moment, surveys are reporting that Americans themselves are not unpopular, although the present Administration is widely despised. How would that change if the Americans seemed

Martini Republic gives us a snapshot of the Second World War 1,138 days after Pearl Harbor, today being 1,138 days after 9/11. Of course, the Poles, British, French and others had been fighting for some time before Pearl Harbor happened, but the point still applies. The territorial

John Dean writes a sobering article from a lawyer’s perspective on the likely legal wrangling that will follow next Tuesday’s vote.

(Minutes from the No. 10 Lobby briefing of journalists) “Asked if the Government remained committed to a draft Bill on [corporate manslaughter laws], the Prime Minister’s Spokesperson said that it would be inappropriate to comment on the contents of the forthcoming Queen’s Speech. Put to her that she

There is an interesting piece of opinion research available today from the Programme on International Policy Attitudes. The document itself is not long, and worth reading, but the take-away is that the Bush and Kerry supporters questioned don’t merely disagree on matters of policy or principle, they disagree on

There are times when even a politophile (or whatever you’d call it) just wants to fold his tent and slip away. Just stroll away from the issues that matter, and try and have what fun I can before the end comes. I’m getting that feeling again as the

That Ron Suskind piece in the New York Times Magazine today is worth reading in full. It reinforces one of my central political views, that easy agreement is dangerous, and powerful people agreeing with each other is even more dangerous. Debate is not, to put it another way, a means