John Rentoul is chief political commentator for The Independent on Sunday, and visiting professor at Queen Mary, University of London, where he teaches contemporary history. Previously he was chief leader writer for The Independent. He has written a biography of Tony Blair, whom he admired more at the end of his time in office than he did at the beginning. Click here and 'like' to receive updates on Facebook
Guy Keleny is still away, so I am standing in for him in the Errors & Omissions column in today’s Independent. In which I seek to save the distinct meaning of disinterested, among other things:
Tom Mendelsohn’s review of Lovebox – it is a pop music festival – on Tuesday said that Paloma Faith [right] went [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 24 July 2010 at 11:45 am
I was very sorry to see Johann Hari, who once supported the invasion of Iraq, now repeating some of the most awful and untrue anti-war propaganda in an unconvincing article about Tony Blair, BP, Libya and oil in yesterday’s Independent. In it he says:
Many people were perplexed by Tony Blair’s decision to back George W [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 24 July 2010 at 10:54 am
John Walsh has a lovely line in his “Notebook” today about why David Cameron’s National Citizen Service is slightly sinister:
For all his attempts to present the scheme as a jolly, inclusive, kids-together enterprise (Swallows and Amazons and Hoodies, The Famous Five Make A Movie With Some Local Oiks), weasel words keep escaping his cautious presentation.
But [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 23 July 2010 at 2:36 pm
Professor Peter Hennessy is on form. I went to the launch of the new edition of his book The Secret State last week (the first edition sold well, apparently, which one mandarin said was a case of “retrospective panic-buying”), and quoted him in The Independent on Sunday at the weekend.
Yesterday he was on “The Curse [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 22 July 2010 at 4:10 pm
Dan Hodges has a good assessment (that is, I agree with it) of the Labour leadership candidates at Labour Uncut. He notes that Ed Miliband has run a negative campaign against his party’s past and everyone involved in it:
So virulent have been his assaults on the policies in the last manifesto that I shudder to [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 22 July 2010 at 3:18 pm
Russell Razzaque, a psychiatrist and author of Human Being to Human Bomb: The Conveyor Belt of Terror, disagreed with the British military action in Iraq.
So, now, does the Daily Mail, although its editorial position at the time was carefully hedged. In a leading article today the Mail is so taken by the testimony of Baroness [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 22 July 2010 at 2:40 pm
The voting reform referendum Bill is to be published this afternoon, so now is the time to repeat my one contribution of mind-numbing detail, which I unsurprisingly think is important.
I am a supporter of the Alternative Vote, which allows voters to number as many candidates as they want in order of preference, which at least [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 22 July 2010 at 1:44 pm
Samira Shackle at the Staggers, the New Statesman blog, asks number 371 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No. But a warm welcome back to the Blair hate fest to Philippe Sands QC, who has in the past explained in some detail why a prosecution is not going to happen.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 22 July 2010 at 11:29 am
When Nick Clegg in the House of Commons today criticised the erosion of civil liberties and the invasion of people’s privacy over the past 13 years, he was referring, of course, to the rise of Facebook and eyespymp.
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is quoted by Jeffrey Rosen in The New York Times on the importance of “societal forgetting”. By [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 21 July 2010 at 8:17 pm
Talking of Baroness Manningham-Buller (below), I can’t believe that the rebuttal service has to go round the same old loop of “Iraq caused 7/7″ all over again.
Yes, MI5 were worried that Britain’s taking part in the invasion of Iraq might increase support for jihadist terrorism. Yet there is no evidence that it did. Mohammed Siddique [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 21 July 2010 at 5:02 pm
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