Category Archives: Blog
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, …
Pele & Maradona: Contrasting Greatness
by Jimmy Burns Among the claims to football greatness, those of Pele and Maradona, who died within just over two years of each other, will endure as a contrast in character and iconography, defining between them the developing story of modern football. Pele’s emerged on the international scene as a skinny seventeen-year-old in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. He went on to straddle the transition of football from a game to a serious business venture, breaking cultural and racial boundaries , his true potential barely registered by the grey …
Messi is the greatest, so was Maradona
For fear or being accused of being a party popper, and in deference to my many Argentine friends who , as I write , are having the most joyous and extended party of their lives, let me first offer my heart-felt ‘felicidades’. Argentina has not only won two world cups as a democratic country, but each have been achieved thanks by the best player of his time, with a distinct personality and unique set of skills. No need to relegate the memory of the late Maradona to make way for …
Maradona’s World Cup
Maradona’s World Cup Story By Jimmy Burns With the World Cup in Qatar fast approaching this winter in the Northern hemisphere, one football legend will be missed, and notable by his absence , even for ever remembered, Diego Maradona who died two years ago on the 25th of November 2020. During his tempestuous life and career, Maradona played for top clubs in South America and Europe-including Boca Juniors, FC Barcelona and most notably Napoli where he became an adored hero and adopted son. He was the Player of the …
Lies Damn Lies:The Falklands War
If in war the first casualty is truth, then the Falklands conflict, fourty years ago, provides an interesting case study. This paper examines the extent to which a regimented society in Argentina was exploited by the military junta to provide a manipulated and distorted narrative of the Falklands War. The aim was to give the impression that the war was not only justified in sovereignty terms but had God on its side. In the process a nation rallied behind a Project which in diplomatic and military terms was doomed to …
David Gardner Remembered
In memory of David Gardner, friend and colleague David and I were not just colleagues but enduring friends over more than five decades from when we first started at Stonyhurst College aged thirteen. Those were formative years educationally with the Jesuits giving as a sense of human solidarity and openness to the world and the need to be active participants. He was always ahead of me intellectually and I followed his early teenage recommendation for expanding my learning. He was reading Orwell as an example of English essay writing and …
Kabul remembered
With the Taliban taking power in Kabul, I share this memory of a visit to the presidential palace with other British journalists and Tony Blair in November 2006. We were visiting the region on the fifth anniversary of the liberation of Kabul from Taliban control. The visit had begun with an abrupt descent to Kabul airport in a Hercules transport to diminish the risk of being hit by hostile ground to air fire. On landing, the rear access to the military aircraft opened like the mouth of a whale and …
