The Politics of Dancing

Just Some of The Apologies That Never Came… From Iain Duncan Smith for consistently misleading the public about the progress of Universal Credit and regularly feeding the press inaccurate information about welfare recipients, ( See ONS ). George Osborne for failing to meet any of his economic targets. Boris Johnson for breaking his promise not to stand for Parliament whilst still Mayor of London. All those who marched with placards saying ‘Don’t bomb Iraq’ [sic]. [1] Who, if their advice had been followed, would have witnessed the fall of Kobane and the continuing genocide of Yazidis and Christians. Sepp Blatter’s mea culpa, along with his resignation, for finally destroying what very little credibility FIFA had left. The Rot on The Left Exposed For me a two moments of stomach churning realisation of just how rotten the far left had become. In October, after considerable pressure on Turkey had failed to yield results, the US decided, in the face of Turkish ...

Military campaigns fail for many reasons. Many factors can come into play. The inability to re-supply, inferior firepower, or simply an opponent’s superior tactical strategy. One reason that campaigns fail is however more psychological than military, it is when commanders and leaders become mesmerised by symbols, by the idea that the capture or annihilation of a particular place will somehow magically confer victory. This obsession can drive even great generals insane, as against all logic or practical strategic concerns they throw ever greater resources, particularly the lives of the men they command, into the capture or destruction of the symbolic objective. For Napoleon the obsession was Moscow, the capture of which he thought would bring Russian defeat and victory for the Grand Army. The prize of Moscow dazzled him preventing him from seeing that whilst a Russian army still remained intact in the field Russia would never surrender. Not a mistake he would normally have made. ...

T his Christmas seems to have arrived in unseemly haste. It does not feel like a year since I last wrote something for the Christmas period. It’s been a bleak year what with the rise of ISIS, the Russian annexation of Crimea and invasion of Eastern Ukraine. Whilst in Syria a combination of the vile Assad dictatorship and the equally vile Islamists continue to tear that country apart. Everywhere Islamist violence is inflicted upon the innocent and vulnerable. From Boko Haram, committing mass murder and kidnapping Nigerian schoolgirls to the Pakistani Taliban slaughtering children in their classrooms.  Above all as been the grotesque 8 th  Century barbarism of IS [Daesh]. Particularly horrible has been the mass rape and enslavement of Yazidi women. Where is the western outrage over this? Where are the Western feminists, so outraged by an inappropriate shirt and yet silent over this terrible crime in Iraq?  

If there was ever a tale for our time it is surely the case of @ShamiWitness. This pro-IS Twitter account was responsible for propagandising for IS on an industrial scale, pouring out tweets defending beheadings, slavery and the war unleashed against the Shia, Yazidi and Kurdish communities. ‘ The account's influence cannot be underestimated. The International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) pointed to ShamiWitness as the single greatest "influencer" on militant jihadist Twitter, around whom foreign fighters and their fans would cluster. "We found that of all the Twitter accounts that Western foreign fighters followed, he was by far the most important, popular, and influential one, with more than 60 percent of the foreign fighters in our sample following, re-tweeting, and/or mentioning him," ICSR director Peter Neumann told VICE News.’ [1] Now the keyboard warrior has been ‘outed’ by a British television channel and...

The above picture I find truly horrible, literally nightmarish. It haunted me for a considerable time after I first saw it on Twitter. But what does it depict? The very nature of the picture seems too horrible to be real. It has appeared numerous times, most recently here, and is said to depict Yazidi sex slaves. But does it?  I have sought to establish the veracity of this picture with some difficulty, however finally someone on Twitter informed me that the women were Iranian and they are shown enacting scenes related to the battle of Karbala, a regular pageant known as the ceremony of Arbaeen. I did find the picture above when I googled ‘The religious ceremony of Arbaeen,’ but as it appeared with pictures quite clearly not related to the ceremony it proved nothing.  The picture however is very similar to this one, taken by Wissam al-Saliby, identified as being part of contemporary Karbala celebrations.  Wissam al-Saliby When you click on this ...

One element of the 1930’s that is not perhaps fully grasped is that for many British people it was a time of growing affluence and prosperity, particularly in the south of England and midlands, where the new industries such as motor car production provided good wages for those making things that catered for a new and growing middle class. For civil servants, doctors, middle managers amongst others having a motor car had become a realistic ambition, and many took to the roads. Whilst London, the biggest city in the world, provided ample opportunity to relieve middle class Londoners, and those from the recently constructed suburbs, of their newly acquired surplus income. But Britain, particularly England was not one country in the 1930’s, for beside this growing affluence were whole areas of northern England where unemployment, abject poverty and destitution were commonplace. Wigan was just one such area, there were a great many more. The key thing to remember about the depress...

A Boys Own Adventure?   " Recently, as a result of events in Iraq, some have called for powers to seize people’s passports at the border and to leave people stranded if they’ve been foolish enough to go on some ridiculous Boy’s Own adventure. " Shami Chakrabarti, Director of the Human Rights Organisation, Liberty. I want to start with, what Martin Amis called, a thought experiment. I want you to imagine an organisation established in the US and Canada, let us call it Aryan State. It’s an outfit that has already kidnapped a number of Imams, human rights workers and journalists. Several of these prisoners have been beheaded in the most savage way imaginable, video made of the event which was then posted on social media. Further decapitations are threatened unless the security services back off. The groups programme, the establishment of a state for Aryans only, no Muslims, Jews or people of colour, has attracted the attention of white supremacists across the world. Fr...