Politics, tech and media issues from a Muslim perspective
Two things have always fascinated me about attitudes to the British royal family. The first is how protective many people are about the monarchy as an institution and how vindictive many people are against...
Note: this was written on Thursday 24th when the story was a day and a half old, the dead were still believed to be Chinese rather than Vietnamese, and Maurice ‘Mo’ Robinson had only...
In light of the revelations about sexual harassment of hostesses at the men-only Presidents’ Club dinner, an annual event for very wealthy men at which expensive prizes (e.g. flash cars, cosmetic surgery, flights in...
A study commissioned by Halifax (part of the big HBOS banking group but formerly a mutual building society) has found that the district of Hart in Hampshire is the best place to live in...
So, yesterday it was announced that Prince Phillip, the 95-year-old Prince Consort to the Queen, was retiring from public royal duties as of this coming autumn. This followed an awful lot of speculation after...
This week, a woman who had been cut out of her late mother’s will in favour of three animal welfare charities lost her legal battle to claim a large share of the estate. The...
Years ago, there used to be a common explanation for why communism didn’t work. It was all nice on paper, people would say; the state would share all the wealth around and make sure...
This morning I read a news report and a blog about a single mother who is fighting to keep her two daughters out of the foster care system in Alberta, and find them a...
Last Tuesday a British soap actor, Michael “Le Vell” Turner, was found not guilty of multiple counts of rape and sexual assault on a child (now 17). There has been some suggestions that his...
The story of Oscar Pistorius’s shooting of his girlfriend has been going on for a week and a half now, and last Friday, after a four-day bail hearing, he was released on bail of...
The past week or so I’ve been following a series of posts by the blogger “Anna Raccoon”, who I earlier came across in her articles about the Court of Protection and her championing of...
Government orders building standards review | Politics | The Guardian The government has ordered a review of building standards regulations, with a view to reducing the number of regulations, ostensibly to facilitate a revival...
I watched Wednesday night’s Exposure documentary in which the claims that have been made about his molestation of young girls in the BBC studios and at a special boarding school in Surrey in the...
Last Monday, three men were found guilty of a shooting in south London that left a 5-year-old girl of Tamil origin, Thusha Kamaleswaran, paralysed from the chest down, and injured an Asian man, Roshan...
Yesterday, three towns — one in England, one in Wales and one in Scotland — were awarded City status by the queen (i.e. the government). This is a status which is purely symbolic and...
Recently there were two court cases which further established the secularism of the British state, despite its nominal Christian character: one involved an atheist councillor in Bideford, Devon, who resigned from a council after...
“Hackney heroine” tells why she confronted rioters (from last Monday’s Guardian) Pauline Pearce was the woman caught on camera lecturing rioting youths in Hackney that they should “fight for a cause” rather than tearing...
Boris Johnson in tough units call for young rioters - Crime, UK - The Independent Boris Johnson has called for school children involved in the riots last week (and presumably any future similar incidents)...
I have held off writing about the wave of rioting and looting that hit London and some other English towns and cities early last week partly because I was busy (work, Ramadan and an...
There is an article in today’s Guardian about the ongoing civil war in Colombia, in which government-sponsored paramilitaries kidnap and murder ordinary people in the countryside and dress them up like FARC guerrillas, so...