Matthew Carr's Blog, page 42
November 7, 2015
Fortress Europe Book Launch
Next week sees the publication of the paperback edition of Fortress Europe, and I’ve got a couple of events coming up in London to mark the occasion. On Wednesday at 6.30 I’ll be at the Waterstones in Trafalgar Square in … Continue reading →
November 2, 2015
Snobbery is Good for You
Today, while waiting to have my hair cut, I happened to come across a Howard Jacobson article in the weekly Independent about Germaine Greer. This wasn’t an unexpected or a guilty pleasure. I rarely find reading Jacobson a pleasure at … Continue reading →
October 24, 2015
Israel’s Phony Culturati
As someone who has spent much of his life writing and reading, and often writing directly or indirectly about politics, I’ve often had doubts about the role of writers and how relevant and useful we actually are, about the extent … Continue reading →
October 19, 2015
Europe Hearts Erdogan
It’s little more than a week since the worst terrorist attack in Turkish history – a vicious atrocity in which the government was at best neglectful and at worst actively complicit, in which more than 100 peaceful demonstrators were murdered … Continue reading →
October 15, 2015
Three Cheers for Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein
The Daily Mail and the Daily Express are angry with the Jordanian United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. No one will be surprised by this. Neither newspaper is a fan of the United Nations. They … Continue reading →
October 12, 2015
Erdogan’s Massacre
Terrorist atrocities tend to provoke a predictable stock response from politicians and governments. Invariably there is a great deal of sonorous rhetoric, accompanied by exhortations to the population to stand firm and show unity in the face of the universal … Continue reading →
October 7, 2015
Lord Snooty’s House of Horrors
Even before the 2015 Tory conference began the signs were not good. First there was the announcement that the government intends to ban ‘militant left-wing councils’ from supporting or promoting boycotts and political campaigns that conflict with British foreign policy. This ban … Continue reading →
October 2, 2015
Get Your Trident On!
We have known for some time that Jeremy Corbyn is a dangerous man, and the Labour Party Conference has now revealed just how menacing he truly is. For it is now clear that we have a potential future prime minister who … Continue reading →
September 30, 2015
Catalonia Dreaming
Last Friday morning I was on the top of Mount Canigou, ‘the sacred mountain of Catalonia’, with my staunchly independentista friend from Barcelona, Andreu. Andreu had brought a Catalan flag with him to mark the occasion, and he wasn’t … Continue reading →
September 27, 2015
Feminist Hypocrites Are Us
I’ve just come back from another twelve days in the French and Spanish Pyrenees as part of my research for a book. Up in the mountains I had only intermittent Internet access as usual, so I was only occasionally able to follow … Continue reading →
