The EU Referendum Could Become a Rallying Point for the Nastiest Impulses in British Politics

With the PR battle over Britain’s EU membership hotting up, it is a dispiriting thought to remember that the official campaigning period has not even begun.

As a country we are in for yet more of the seemingly endless, vituperative debate surrounding Europe; and some of what has been said already touches on certain subjects in a worrying manner.

There is a distinct possibility of the EU referendum campaign giving an airing to some of the nastier debates and perspectives within the British body politic, including borderline racist sentiments.

Afghanistan Is Not Ready to Be Abandoned

Leaving Afghanistan because of domestic political pressure would be deeply wrong, writes James Snell.

As British troops leave Helmand Province in Afghanistan, prefacing eventual withdrawal from the country, the correct reaction might appear to be relief. After all, ‘our boys’, who fought, bled and died in the dust of South Asia, will soon be coming home.

However, this view, while certainly understandable, is deeply short-sighted.

Peter Oborne’s Syria Dispatch Is a Disgrace

Peter Oborne’s Syrian dispatch reads like George Bernard Shaw on Stalin’s Russia.

The humanitarian disaster that engulfs Syria continues to be an object of media fascination. Journalists in the West, whose families are not threatened by government militias or gangs of jihadis, postulate and probe the situation from a distance.