Harry's Place

Although the debate has been eclipsed by the Polanski affair, Professor John Spencer of Cambridge University recently flew the kite of reducing the age of consent – presently 16 – to some unspecified lower age. Here is the Daily Mail’s report, illustrated with a photo of a putative teenager, taking contraceptive pills:
A BBC programme is [...]

Here you can view the list of those who have signed a petition protesting about Roman Polanski’s arrest. Part of the petition states the following:
Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to [...]

Neturei Karta are a strange group of religiously extreme Jews, who believe that in order to persuade the Messiah to replace the Al Aqsa Mosque with the Third Temple, Israel must be destroyed. To that end, they have spent the last few years chumming up to the chap they think is most likely to assist [...]

I think Tim Ireland is a bit silly. There. I’ve said it.
We met when the Guardian did an article about us, and then we had a nice lunch afterwards. Tim seemed OK to me.
I have never really followed Tim’s site. At my last place of work, it was categorised – surreally – as pornographic, and [...]

This is a guest post by Edmund Standing

BBC Radio 1’s ‘Newsbeat’ site has posted an interview entitled ‘Young BNP members explain beliefs’, featuring ‘Joey’ and ‘Mark’. The Mark in question is none other than Mark Collett (pictured above), who at 28 is arguably a little old for the ‘Young BNP’ (although he allegedly enjoys the [...]

This is a guest post by S.O.Muffin
This website, quite rightly, devoted a great deal of attention to exposing questionable practices of HRW and of its personnel engaged with the Israel–Palestine issue. But what is a sauce for the goose… The main protagonist of Marc Galasco in two major instances predating Cast Lead was the IDF [...]

Here is Michel Massih QC, the barrister who is trying to get a court to issue an arrest warrant for Ehud Barak.

Although he is best known for his high profile defences of terrorists, from Abu Nidal gunmen, through the IRA and right up to Tanvir Hussain – now convicted of conspiracy to murder for his [...]

Guest post by Andrew Murphy
Perhaps few names have been as polarizing intellectually in the last couple of decades than Friedrich Von Hayek (1899-1992). To the Right, he was the celebrated hero who had communism’s number and was a prophet before his time. To the Left, his name was like garlic to vampires; mention the name [...]

You will remember that one of the crucial questions in the Goldstone Report was whether the policemen killed on the first day of conflict were “civilian” or “military” in nature. Goldstone concluded that, although the police force had emerged from the paramilitary ‘Executive Force’ in late 2007, by late 2008 there was a proper division [...]

This is a guest post by Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The recent revelations that Iran has worked for years on constructing a secret uranium enrichment facility have greatly intensified concerns about the Islamic republic’s nuclear program. Claims that this program is for civilian purposes have obviously been undermined by this secret project, but the debate about what should [...]