Reporting News and Opinions
ITV’s Lucy Watson helpfully translated the subtext for the rest of us: “This is not a developing, third-world nation; this is Europe!” The unthinkable, you see, is only unthinkable when it happens to the right people. When it happens elsewhere, it is merely Tuesday.
There was a time when Mike Rogers occupied a particular place in my understanding of American politics. He appeared to belong to that category of Republican politicians who, whatever their ideological differences with Democrats, understood that national security was too serious a business to be reduced to partisan theatre. He was measured, disciplined, informed and, above all, appeared to be a man who understood the difference between intelligence work and political propaganda.
In journalism, the oldest truism is that "dog bites man" isn’t news. A dog is supposed to bite. If a dog bites a postman, you don’t stop the printing presses; you only call the front desk if the postman bites the dog back
When a British-born Black politician is told that his loyalty belongs elsewhere, the question is no longer merely about immigration or patriotism. It is about who gets to decide who truly belongs to Britain.
Enoch Powell famously observed that “all political careers end in failure.” Whether one agrees with the man or not, the aphorism has endured because politics is an unforgiving profession. Few modern British politicians illustrate it more vividly than David Cameron.
