The arrest of former Serbian military chief, Ratko Mladic, finally begins to draw a line underneath the unspeakable savagery that characterised the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Mladic was the remaining ‘big fish’ still unaccounted for, and his capture poses almost as many embarrassing questions for the Serb authorities as for the Pakistani authorities with […]
Bin Laden, extra judicial killing – and the shining example that was Nuremburg
May 9th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.In the days of the Wild West, the posters used to read ‘Wanted! Dead or Alive’. Now in the White House we must presume they read, ‘Wanted! Dead, Not Alive!’ This is the image that President Obama and his administration have conveyed through the bizarre but officially sanctioned photograph showing them watching the military operation […]
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Côte d’Ivoire: another UN success
Apr 13th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.If anyone imagined that the act of intervention by itself is always enough for the United Nations to emerge unscathed, one only need to look at the chequered history of the various UN attempts to hold the line in post colonial Congo-Kinshasa, better known today as the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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The Queen Mother was a union member
Apr 8th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.Yesterday the City of London moved against the fish porters of Billingsgate Market in London, revoking their licences in a move that would be more familiar to mediaeval Knights than it would to twenty first century elected Mayors. The City of London is in itself a feudal hangover, essentially only accountable to itself – which […]
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Revolution and the rise of Al Jazeera
Mar 30th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.Perhaps it was unintended, but two or three weeks ago, at the height of the protests that were gripping the great cities of Egypt, the director general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, appeared on the channel’s flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, in London as part of a debate on the future of newsgathering, and mentioned […]
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Labour must get back in touch
Mar 24th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.I have a photograph back home taken in 1978. It is of a demonstration organised by local trade unions in the town of Trowbridge in Wiltshire. I was barely seventeen years old at the time, but there we are marching underneath a banner that reads ‘Wiltshire Against the Cuts’, Tony Benn, the then local Swindon […]
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Averting a Guernica in Libya
Mar 19th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.There are already some on the Left who are arguing against military intervention – in the form of a no fly zone – over Libya. The argument has merit on the grounds of consistency, and probably, although it is not being advanced, on grounds of practicality. This will be a difficult military operation to mount. […]
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Europe: Time For Britain To Decide
Mar 16th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.I am old enough – just – to remember Britain’s one and only referendum on whether we should remain a member of what was then called the Common Market, back in 1975. Having decided that we should, Britons watched as the Common Market became the European Economic Community, then the European Community, and finally the […]
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If David Miliband is the answer, its a bloody stupid question
Mar 13th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.It says something about the rather dismal condition of both British politics and journalism, that this week there was an amount of liberal fluttering over a speech at the London School of Economics by former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who was beaten by his brother for the Labour leadership. Here is Miliband’s thesis; it is that […]
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Living in the shadow of the Bankers – and paying the price for their greed
Mar 8th, 2011 by Mark Seddon.When the Chief Executive of Barclays Bank, Bob Diamond, made his appearance in front of a House of Commons Select Committee recently, he said that “the time for remorse was over” for the bankers who had driven the Western economies to the edge of the precipice. Last month it emerged that Barclays Bank paid only […]
