Monthly Archives: March 2023
Spook Turf Wars
Review by Jimmy Burns of ‘Need to Know’ , World War 11 and the rise of American intelligence by Nicholas Reynolds (Mariner Books) Blame Ian Fleming but my generation of fellow British public-school boys – privileged private educated friends, some of whom went on to enter the secret world after being born in the early stages of the Cold War -developed our early perception of US intelligence through the prism of James Bond’s alliance with his CIA buddy the similarly fictitious Felix Leiter. The Texan Leiter ,as dramatised by different …
Johnson’s nadir
Even for Boris Johnson, someone who for most of his adult life has set honesty at a pretty low standard, the taking of an oath must have given him some pause for reflection. As he swore , live and streamed, on the bible to speak the truth and nothing but the truth before his l parliamentary inquisitors, one got a sense that the stage was set for a reckoning. Johnson may have made a habit as a journalist and prime minister with playing fast and loose with the facts, …
Humanising Asylum Policy
I am indebted to Tim Fetherston for a reminder that in this conflictive, confrontational politics of today we need to retain a sense of moral duty of care for the vulnerable. Fetherston is a volunteer medicolegal doctor from the Northeast if England with Freedom from Torture, a UK charity which, since its formation in 1985, has provided support for more than 50,000 victims of torture who have fled to the UK for asylum. This support ,Fetherston tells us, “takes the form of psychological therapy, social assistance and advice, …
