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You know that thing where BBC journalists aren't supposed to betray BBC impartiality by expressing points of views on matters of political controversy on Twitter and that other thing where lots of them are happily doing just that, well, here's a collection of Newsnight policy editor  Lewis Goodall's tweet  on one such matter - the composition and existence of the House of Lords.  I think it's safe to say that he doesn't even attempt to hide what he thinks - and his behaviour hasn't changed since he's joined the BBC,  despite BBC guidelines : Tweeted after joining the BBC :  Jul 31,2020: 12 places in the legislature for life for former MPs whose services were either dispensed with by the electorate or who decided they didn’t wish to win a place in the legislature by election a further time. And so the House of Lords continues to swell and swell. Jul 31,2020: Latest honours list announced. Place in the legislature for life for the PM’s brother and

Where’s Will Gompertz these days? As there is no Turner Prize in 2020, we might assume he’s been furloughed - but no, he’s around - he reported on the 9th May on the 2020 BP Portrait Award.  I must admit I missed it - it never made the BBC News website Home page:  Jiab Prachakul: Will Gompertz reviews BP Portrait Award 2020 winner ★★★☆☆ Reading between the lines of his report, Will’s not happy. There’s no political angle to Jiab Prachakul’s portrait. It’s conventional. It tells the story of a couple during a moment of closeness. Unlike so much current portraiture, it isn’t derived from a photograph.  The subject doesn’t resonate with any of Will’s favourite hobbyhorses. The sitters appear to be a straight couple in a conventional setting, and there’s no BLM, anti Western, anti Thatcher, anti Capitalist or Islamophobic angle. Q. How can Will cover this ‘non-story?’  A. By comparing the work to several of the Greats from history including Monet, Degas and Rembrandt: ‘It&#

I half think it’s inappropriate to make flippant comments about this topic, but you know me. (You actually don’t, but ..) I woke up this morning old . An old person. Well, that’s been happening a lot lately. I’m that judge who didn’t know what the Beatles were. Also, I didn’t know exactly what Grime is. (I do now because I’ve looked it up.)   Grime is a genre of electronic music that emerged in London in the early 2000s. It developed out of earlier UK dance style UK garage, and draws influences from jungle, dancehall, and hip hop. Typically characterized by a minimal, prominent rhythm, a very low-pitched bassline, and vocals by an MC.   To be pernickety, I don’t know what garage, jungle etc are either, in terms of ‘dance’ but I do know what the words mean in their non-dance usage, of course.  The word Grime = dirt ingrained on the surface of something."the windows were thick with grime” see also: dross, pollution, muck, gunge, yuck, crud, goo, grot. ….and it’s also a v

Source:- After Rafales, Upgraded LCA Tejas Will Be Next Addition To The Indian Air Force Just days after India received its first batch of Rafale jets from France, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is all set to order Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. The LCA Tejas will replenish the IAF’s fighter fleet, restart India Inc’s paralysed supply chains and create a multi-tiered defence industrial ecosystem. According to reports, order for 83 Tejas Mark 1A variants is likely to be confirmed before December 2020. Earlier this year, after months of negotiations, HAL and the IAF finally agreed on a price tag of Rs 39,000 crore for the 83 aircraft (73 fighter jets and 10 two-seat trainer variants). Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) officials attributed the delay to several outstanding issues, particularly a number of queries related to ‘additional requirements through contract.’ The next phase in the contract would be approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), India’s topmost national

Beijing recently conducted “high-intensity” naval exercises in the South China Sea, China’s defence ministry said Thursday, as tensions grow over the Asian power’s manoeuvres in the contested waters. China’s expanding military presence in the region has worried several of its neighbours, while the US has vowed to stand up against Beijing’s territorial claims to much of the South China Sea, including the contested Paracel Islands. Chinese H-6G and H-6J jet bombers carried out “high-intensity training, and completed day-and-night training exercises in taking off and landing, long-range assault, and attacks on sea targets,” defence ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said at a virtual press conference Thursday. Ren said the exercises were part of routine training and had “achieved the expected results”, without giving their specific location. China — which is locked in disputes with neighbours including India, Japan and Vietnam over islands in the South China Sea — has infuriated other n

The first five Rafale fighter jets bought from France in a multi-billion-dollar deal landed in India on Wednesday, and the defence minister used their arrival to launch a veiled warning to neighbouring China over territorial tensions. A water-cannon guard of honour greeted the five jets when they landed at the Ambala air base in Haryana state. India has bought 36 Rafale fighters from France in a deal estimated to be worth $9.4 billion. All are scheduled to be delivered by the end of 2021. An intense nationwide spotlight on the combat jets has been sharpened by a deadly border standoff with China. Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the jets with a tweet in Sanskrit: “There is no sacrifice like the national defence; there is no good deed like the national defence; there is no practice like national defence.” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the arrival of the fighter jets marked “the beginning of a new era in our military history”. The jets will make the Indian Air Force “mu

Companies Highlight Jobs, Economic Spinoffs As Canadian Fighter-Jet Competition Closes (excerpt) OTTAWA --- Fighter-jet makers are leading with promises of jobs and other economic spinoffs as they make their final pitches for why Canada should buy their planes to replace the military's aging CF-18 fleet. Friday marks the deadline for U.S. aerospace companies Lockheed Martin and Boeing, as well as Swedish firm Saab, to submit their bids in the current fighter-jet competition, which will see Canada spend up to $19 billion on 88 new planes. The closing of the competition marks a major milestone in Canada's decade-long effort to buy new fighter jets for the Royal Canadian Air Force, which has been plagued by government mismanagement and political controversy. While the combat capability of each of the three competing planes — Lockheed Martin's F-35, Boeing's Super Hornet and Saab's Gripen — will be the main focus as the government evaluates each bid, there will also

Spain Agrees Investment Plan with Airbus In Exchange for Fewer Job Losses (excerpt) After meeting with Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury (L), Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (R) has agreed to buy three MRTT tankers, four C295 aircraft, at least 36 H135 and four H160 helicopters in exchange for fewer job cuts at Airbus Spain. (SP govt photo) MADRID --- Spain’s government and Airbus said on Thursday they had agreed measures aimed at propping up the aerospace sector and minimising job losses after a meeting between Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Airbus Chief Executive Guillaume Faury. “Both parties consider it essential to promote a series of initiatives to strengthen the whole sector in Spain and its auxiliary industries,” Airbus and the government said in a joint statement. Battered by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Airbus, which is 4% owned by the Spanish government, has said it will lay off about 900 workers in Spain as part 15,000 cuts worldwide, prompting large protests

A Farewell to Armor: Marine Corps Shuts Down Tank Units, Hauls Away M1A1s (excerpt) Marine Corps M1A1 Abrams tanks of the 2nd Tank Battalion left Camp Lejeune, N.C., for the last time this week as part of the service’s sweeping modernization plan that envisions a more agile force. Tank units on the East and West coasts shuttered this month and began hauling their armor to military depots, the service said. The Marine Corps will eventually divest of all three of its active tank battalions as it moves from a “second land army” back to its maritime roots of defending ships at sea, island-hopping and battling for contested coastlines, in preparation for potential conflict with near-peer adversaries such as China. “We have sufficient evidence to conclude that this capability, despite its long and honorable history in the wars of the past, is operationally unsuitable for our highest-priority challenges in the future,” Commandant Gen. David Berger wrote of the tanks in a March plan for the

A scheduled confirmation hearing for a senior civilian position in the Trump administration was was canceled at the last minute Thursday morning. Anthony J. Tata was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as undersecretary of defense for policy, but has faced criticism for past remarks including calling former President Barack Obama "a terrorist leader." Sources told the Washington Post that by Wednesday afternoon the administration had determined it did not have enough Republican votes to confirm Tata. "There are many Democrats and Republicans who didn't know enough about Anthony Tata to consider him for a very significant position at this time," Senate Armed Services Committee chair Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said in a statement Thursday. "We didn't get the required documentation in time; some documents, which we normally get before a hearing, didn't arrive until yesterday. As I told the President last night, we're simply out of time with t

A South Korean marine major-general was relieved of his command Friday after the military failed to prevent a man's illegal defection back to the North, officials said. The man's departure only came to light when Pyongyang -- which insists it has not had any coronavirus cases -- announced at the weekend that a "runaway" who had returned across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone was suspected of having the disease. Defections from the South to the North are extremely rare, and doubly so across the DMZ, which divides the peninsula and is one of the world's most secure borders. But the South Korean military later confirmed a 24-year-old man surnamed Kim had gone North by crawling through a drainage channel on Ganghwa island, northwest of Seoul, and then swimming across the Han river. On Friday, the joint chiefs of staff (JCS) said that Kim was detected on his journey seven times by surveillance cameras or thermal observation devices, but the military did no

In a statement released online earlier today, al-Qaeda’s Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) took responsibility for a suicide assault on French troops in northern Mali last week. One French soldier was killed in the attack. JNIM’s statement begins by saying that the “mujahideen struck the occupier French base in the Gossi area [in Mali’s Timbuktu Region] on July 23.” The jihadist group continues by adding that “two explosive vehicles were used in the raid.” It goes on to allege that one of the suicide car bombs detonated at the entrance to the base, while the second managed to detonate inside the camp. According to the al-Qaeda branch, mortars were then fired into the compound before an assault team of two other jihadists entered the fray. The July 23 raid in Gossi was confirmed by the French military at the time, though the official statement from the French Ministry of Defense differs greatly from JNIM’s version of events. The French military has confirmed that one

🇳🇬🇧🇩 In an extremely helpful comment at the end of Blog 1697, Nejmeddine Boudaren of Aurescollections has very kindly informed us that NIPOST, the postal service of Nigeria , is intending to release a joint stamp issue with the postal service of Bangladesh in August 2020 on the subject of the countries’ bilateral relations. Further details are awaited.   Nejmeddine also points out that the Senegal COVID-19 issue mentioned in an addendum to Blog 1697 is accompanied by a 5000F miniature sheet and 1000F stamp printed in sheets of 25.   Very many thanks to Nejmeddine for this helpful and interesting information. 🇮🇪  An Post, the postal service of the Republic Of Ireland , issued a single stamp on 30 July 2020 to commemorate the Centenary of the birth of Liam Cosgrave who was the Irish prime minister from 1973 to 1977. I do not yet have further details about the issue but I suspect that the painting used in the design is that which the artist Edward McGuire painted in 1982.

Matti Friedman is my hero. He writes the things that I would write, had I the ability or the education. I’ll ignore any sarcastic references to random scientific masterpieces that I might have created - Large Hadron Colliders and suchlike - but for one or two minor technical disadvantages. By Jove he gets it. He absolutely gets it. You’ve gotta read his article and please do click on the links as well. Israel Was Ground Zero for the New Woke Religion “All of this has made me think differently about my experience as a reporter in Israel a decade ago, and particularly about an essay I wrote in 2014 for Tablet, which was one of the first publications to pick up on these trends. That essay, “An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth ,” and a second one that appeared in The Atlantic,   described the replacement of journalism here by activism, the subjugation of objective description to higher ideological truth, and the manufacture of politically driven morality plays in

Strykers and military support vehicles belonging to the U.S. Army’s 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment stage for departure from Sochazcew, Poland, for their return to Germany, June 18, 2018. (DoD photo) The United States will bring some American service members home from their forward stationed assignments in Germany, while other service members will move to other locations in Europe to improve the commitment to NATO and the defense of Europe, Defense Secretary Dr. Mark T. Esper said, adding that the proposed changes are firmly in line with the National Defense Strategy. The plan is for U.S. European Command to reposition 11,900 personnel who are currently stationed in Germany to other locations, Esper said during a news conference today at the Pentagon. The move will reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in Germany from about 36,000 to 24,000. Repositioning could begin in weeks, he said, adding that with 24,000 American service members, Germany would still host the highest num