The best reporting of what has happened in Iraq and Syria over the last few months has not been in the papers or on television, but online. Vice are the only news organisation who have managed to embed a reporter with Islamic State (ISIS). Medyan Dairieh’s documentary from Raqqa is remarkable viewing and well worth a watch.
Robin Williams’ three minute history of Clinton, Dubya, Iraq and Obama was pretty funny (some strong language):
RIP.
Jailed expenses cheat Denis MacShane couldn’t stop himself from trying to weasel out of admitting he thieved from the taxpayer as he plugged his book on Channel 4 News last night. “I have no problems at all with what happened to me,” he began, before trying to convince viewers that actually he had been terribly hard done by and didn’t deserve to spend Christmas in the clink. Quelle surprise.
“I claimed money back, all of it expended. Unlike some of my other former colleagues there isn’t a single bit of personal profit for me. As several prisoners said to me, ‘You’re the only guy who’s in here from parliament who didn’t make any money’. But I’m not complaining about it, I’m really not.”
Of course you’re not, Denis.
Asked repeatedly by Cathy Newman if he accepted he stole from the taxpayer, MacShane refused to show remorse: “No, I was reimbursed for money expended, alright, you can trundle around this as much as you like.” Worth watching the interview just to see MacShame’s face when Cathy reads his charge sheet to him…
She should get off the fence and say what she really thinks…
Worth reading Dan Hodges on the ‘new Rwanda‘…
This is a video of George Galloway, the MP for Bradford West, at a Respect Party meeting in Leeds at the weekend:
“We have declared Bradford an Israel free zone. We don’t want any Israeli goods. We don’t want any Israeli services. We don’t want any Israeli academics, coming to the university or the college. We don’t even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford if any of them had thought of doing so. We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel. And you have to do the same.”
Not exactly going to be thousands of Israelis making last minute changes to their summer holiday plans, but still…
