By Michael Faulkner - 03.31.13

On 19 March, exactly ten years after the U.S and British-led invasion of Iraq, a series of  explosions rocked Baghdad, killing about 50 people and injuring dozens more. Although no-one has yet claimed responsibility, they were likely to have been perpetrated by al-Qaida operatives in the country. These outrages were simply the most recent and the most deadly in a continuing spate of killings that have claimed the lives of about 4.000 civilians a year. Despite attempts by apologists for the 2003...

 

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By Michael Faulkner - 03.17.13

Hugo Chavez was an extraordinary phenomenon. To describe him as a phenomenon is not merely hyperbolic. Certainly he was, to use a much over-used phrase, charismatic. But he was more than that. His ability to move millions of mainly poor people – “los pobres de la tierra” – to a passion of loyalty and adoration was quite phenomenal. It was as though he had pulled a lever to unleash an immense wave of popular enthusiasm which he then began to shape into a great social movement to claim the birthright of the dispossessed.

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By Michael Faulkner – 03.03.13

Britain’s execrable tabloid news media are at their most sickening and hypocritical when dealing with matters royal. The worst of a thoroughly bad bunch are the Sun and the Daily Mail. This week they have both acted true to type in their gleeful character-assassination of Man Booker Prize-winning novelist Hilary Mantel. She has been attacked for some remarks she made in the course of a London Review of Books

 

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By Michael Faulkner - 02.17.13

However tempting it may be to do so, it is foolish to make predictions about the electoral prospects for political parties two years from now. Barring some dramatic breakdown that could precipitate it sooner than either of the coalition partners wishes, there will be no election until 2015. Were there to be an election now, it is likely that Labour, which enjoys a substantial lead in the polls, would win a parliamentary majority. Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats recognize this. Discontent is widespread in both parties and amongst coalition MPs disgruntlement has become a permanent state.

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By Michael Faulkner on 02.03.13

Ever since Walter Bagehot divided the parts of the English Constitution into the “efficient”  (Cabinet and House of Commons) and the “dignified” ( Monarchy and House of Lords) it has been more or less accepted by constitutional theorists that the function of the monarchy is largely ceremonial and that, at any rate, the monarch and the “royal family”, are above...

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By Michael Faulkner - 01.20.2013

From the plethora of bad news stories from which to choose in early 2013, two, taken at random on January 10, may serve to illustrate the claim made at the head of this column. The first is a “human interest” story, which therefore took precedence in the media over the second, which was not.

A family of seven – two grandparents and five grandchildren aged from two to eleven – escaped from a tornado of fire that...

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