There’s been a lot of fisking on this blog lately. More than I am happy about – I try to get back to something more positive and discursive, but then, someone comes along and pisses in my pool. Usually a government minister. This trend keeps up. Paul Farrelly MP, Labour member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, recently brought…
Read More You didn’t stand by me – no, not at allAnother in our occasional series of comments that ought to be posts: Rob Farley discusses a Max Boot article in which Boot accuses Britain and Canada of “unilaterally disarming” on the grounds that Canada had the world’s third largest navy in 1945. Farley, of course, gives Boot short shrift, but does point out that armies…
Read More Bad British HistoryWhilst we’re on the subject of spooks, by the way, this tale on Slugger O’Toole is completely ridiculous, for reasons fully explained in a comment I left there. Simply, the Government has plenty of places to go underground right huurr in the South-East, without needing to go to Northern Ireland (seriously! the only part of…
Read More bunker mentalityThe plan to break up the Home Office and let John Reid keep the macho bits is permitting us a rare glimpse of the core executive in action. Consider this story in teh Grauniad. First of all, note the close symbiosis of the Cabinet Office and the intelligence services – historically, the Cabinet Secretariat evolved…
Read More Deep rumblings in the deep stateOK, so we the first to highlight the fact the military is none too certain about the EFPs-from-Iran meme. Then we were the first to draw attention to how trivially easy they are to make, and how widely available the materials and information required are. Since then, the US Army has actually shown off what…
Read More Feel the steel balls