D-Day 65th Anniversary: (1) A British soldier returns to Gold Beach
"You just had to do it and you did it." - Ken Scott, Durham Light Infantry.
The end of free speech?
In the wake of James Purnell's resignation from the cabinet last night, the following worrying statement came from the higher reaches of the Labour Party:
"Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman told GMTV: 'If James Purnell wants to make his decision to leave the government, then that's a matter for him, but he's not entitled to say that the prime minister has to go too'" (my emphases).
Er, why not?
Obama: Echoes of Berlin in Cairo
Speaking in Berlin in 1963, President Kennedy showed how a few words in the local language is a sure fire way of winning approval (in the form of applause) from a foreign audience (clip 1 below).
Today, speaking in Cairo, President Obama did the same with a few words in Arabic (clip 2 below), and also showed how a quotation from the local religious holy book can be just as effective (clip 3).
And he came close to recycling a line from the speech he himself had made in Berlin last year (clips 4 & 5).
Far from implying criticism of him for doing this, I find it very encouraging to hear him sounding as though he is serious about putting into practice an approach to foreign policy that he was only able to make promises about before he became president.
But whether or not we should read anything significant into the replacement of the word 'trust' with the word 'respect' is a question on which I'd need an opinion from an expert on diplomatic semantics.
Inspiring speech for polling day by Peter Sellers
Last November I posted a link to the classic political speech by Peter Sellers to mark the 50th anniversary of its release on The Best of Sellers album - but have just discovered that the link isn't working any more.
What better day to put things right than by posting it again today to inspire us as we make our way to the polling booths?
Pre-delicate hitches from the White House
The delicate nature of some recent news stories seems to have produced a deluge of ‘pre-delicate hitches’ (for more on which, see HERE).
Hillary Clinton was at it in response to the nuclear news from North Korea last week, as was Gordon Brown on Sunday when challenged about the Queen not being invited to the forthcoming 65th anniversary commemorations of D-Day.
So too, on the same delicate subject, was this White House spokesman who managed to produce an ‘uh’ at a rate of once every 3.5 words:
Journalist: Since Queen Elizabeth is the only living head of state who served in the armed forces during World War II, President Obama believes that she should surely be officially invited, doesn't he?
Spokesman: He does and uh uh we uh u are working with those involved uh uh to see if uh we could make that happen. Obviously –
Journalist: Wonderful!
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