Sputnik is a very good programme, and this is one of the best.
Like my appearance on RT to state the case for the community on Ascension Island, those who criticise that channel need to explain why neither the BBC nor Sky News has ever covered the plight of the Chagos Islanders.
When I tried to get them to cover Ascension, the BBC never replied, which could have been attributed to sheer busyness, but Sky went to the trouble of sending a perfectly bizarre email copied to certain of my former employers, at least one of whom found the whole thing as baffling as I did.
George Galloway is wrong about the Falkland Islands, although simply in point of fact his proposed solution is highly likely to come to pass under this Government, which is already committed to giving Argentina a share of the Islands' oil revenue in return for absolutely nothing, a proposal that the last Labour Government very specifically ruled out.
But never trust anyone who professes to support the Falkland Islanders without being an equally vociferous supporter of the Chagos Islanders. If they do not know who the latter are, then they may and must be dismissed on principle as ageing Harry Enfield characters, still tanked up on bad lager after all these years. Denis Healey's position at least had the virtue of consistency.
Also on this latest Sputnik, a question that has been occurring to a lot of us. Why doesn't Israel care that it is now within easy shooting distance of IS, which has come to control half of a neighbouring country?
Galloway's position on Israel, refusing to vote for the recognition of Palestine because that would have entailed recognising Israel, is also not just wrong, but, frankly, quite mad. However, between Israel and IS, arrangements have clearly been made.
After all, they have the same enemies in Damascus and Tehran, and IS was created (Frankenstein-like, as Galloway famously pointed out to David Cameron) by the present age's defining alliance between the Western democracies and the Gulf tyrannies, with the beheaders, who taught IS everything that it knows, well and truly in charge.
I am glad that Sputnik is still on, but I am sorry that Galloway is off on a hopeless quest to become Mayor of London. In his position, I should have promised in my concession speech on Election Night that I was going to contest the first seat in Great Britain to become vacant in the course of this Parliament, and if defeated there, then never to seek public office again.
Orkney and Shetland? Fine. Somewhere for which the same family of local squires had sat since Simon de Montfort? Bring it on. Somewhere where election, or even nomination, would have required a crash course in Welsh? No worries.
That a sufficiently notable person has the absolute right to seek and even expect election for any seat in the House, regardless of the slightest prior connection or otherwise, is an attitude so much of the old school that it is now positively refreshing. It may or may not be correct. But it undeniably makes a change.
Like my appearance on RT to state the case for the community on Ascension Island, those who criticise that channel need to explain why neither the BBC nor Sky News has ever covered the plight of the Chagos Islanders.
When I tried to get them to cover Ascension, the BBC never replied, which could have been attributed to sheer busyness, but Sky went to the trouble of sending a perfectly bizarre email copied to certain of my former employers, at least one of whom found the whole thing as baffling as I did.
George Galloway is wrong about the Falkland Islands, although simply in point of fact his proposed solution is highly likely to come to pass under this Government, which is already committed to giving Argentina a share of the Islands' oil revenue in return for absolutely nothing, a proposal that the last Labour Government very specifically ruled out.
But never trust anyone who professes to support the Falkland Islanders without being an equally vociferous supporter of the Chagos Islanders. If they do not know who the latter are, then they may and must be dismissed on principle as ageing Harry Enfield characters, still tanked up on bad lager after all these years. Denis Healey's position at least had the virtue of consistency.
Also on this latest Sputnik, a question that has been occurring to a lot of us. Why doesn't Israel care that it is now within easy shooting distance of IS, which has come to control half of a neighbouring country?
Galloway's position on Israel, refusing to vote for the recognition of Palestine because that would have entailed recognising Israel, is also not just wrong, but, frankly, quite mad. However, between Israel and IS, arrangements have clearly been made.
After all, they have the same enemies in Damascus and Tehran, and IS was created (Frankenstein-like, as Galloway famously pointed out to David Cameron) by the present age's defining alliance between the Western democracies and the Gulf tyrannies, with the beheaders, who taught IS everything that it knows, well and truly in charge.
I am glad that Sputnik is still on, but I am sorry that Galloway is off on a hopeless quest to become Mayor of London. In his position, I should have promised in my concession speech on Election Night that I was going to contest the first seat in Great Britain to become vacant in the course of this Parliament, and if defeated there, then never to seek public office again.
Orkney and Shetland? Fine. Somewhere for which the same family of local squires had sat since Simon de Montfort? Bring it on. Somewhere where election, or even nomination, would have required a crash course in Welsh? No worries.
That a sufficiently notable person has the absolute right to seek and even expect election for any seat in the House, regardless of the slightest prior connection or otherwise, is an attitude so much of the old school that it is now positively refreshing. It may or may not be correct. But it undeniably makes a change.
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