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Arthur Snell explains why Assad was so violent: "The implications of a small, historically marginal and theologically unorthodox group holding the reins of power are clear: from the start they have had a strong incentive to shore up their power-base through inter-marriage, self-enrichment and repression of the majority."

"A decade ago, liberals, liberaltarians and straight libertarians could readily enthuse about “liberation technologies” and Twitter revolutions in which nimble pro-democracy dissidents would use the Internet to out-maneuver sluggish governments. Technological innovation and liberal freedoms seemed to go hand in hand. Now they don’t. Authoritarian governments have turned out to be quite adept for the time being, not just at suppressing dissidence but at using these technologies for their own purposes." Henry Farrell analyses the changing politics of Silicon Valley.

Isabelle Roughol and John Elledge take us on a women's history tour along London’s Suffragette line: "In a tale as old as social progress itself, suffragists and suffragettes clashed with one another over issues of ideological purity and how to win over public opinion. As the suffragettes’ tactics got increasingly radical, 50,000 women marched on London’s streets in 1913 to say 'Not in our name!'"

"The sea has been pressing back into the boulder clay here for centuries, claiming churches, homes, villages and lives. Ten miles north of Withernsea, at Aldbrough, I saw a recently tarmacked road charging confidently out into thin air like something from a Road Runner cartoon." David Hancox writes about living on the fastest-eroding coastline in Europe.

"Her new home in Rotherfield, East Sussex had fifty acres and included a lake, topiary and an orangery. Lisa Marie cooked, gardened, created her own pub at the house where local friends such as Jeff Beck would pop by for a pint and a singalong." Jessica Olin reviews Lisa Marie Presley's posthumous memoir.

Charles Bramesco argues that David Lynch's Dune (1984) is due a re-evaluation.

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"Starmer was attempting a card trick that mainstream political parties across the West have tried to play in recent years - defeat the hard-right by borrowing their talking points and framing, and then somehow prove that you are better able to deal with this problem than they are." Matt Carr has no confidence in Keir Starmer's attempt to meet the Reform challenge to Labour.

"Syrians are under no illusion that the future will be hard, complicated and may end up being disappointing and even dangerous. Please can we all do them the courtesy of wishing them well, and offering support if it is requested, rather than writing them off now before they’ve even finished freeing and identifying the prisoners from Assad’s concentration camps?" Jonathan Brown calls for optimism about Syria.

Christine Jardine argues that hate crime legislation is not the right way to tackle sexism: "Having once felt the hate crime route was best, I now find the counter argument compelling. It is not just the worst cases – physical and verbal attacks or domestic abuse – that are the end result of misogynistic behaviour. It is everywhere, every day in so many ways."

"Conspiracy theories are not the reason Trump was elected. They are more like the oil that makes the process smoother or faster. What is really being described in the election result is not an electorate declaring it believes every line about theories of secret power structures running the world, but it is an expression of deep disillusionment: how it is to feel disenfranchised, to be poor, that the future is bleaker than the past." Gabriel Gatehouse and Matthew Sweet discuss what America’s rampant conspiracy culture means for truth and democracy now that some of its leading proponents may soon be in office.

Henrietta Billings, director of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, on why the Oxford Street M&S demolition decision exposes a broken planning system and how we need urgent reform to safeguard heritage assets and reduce embodied carbon emissions.

Judit Polgar, the strongest ever woman chess player, calls for the abolition of separate titles (such as woman grandmaster), with lower qualifying standards, for women players. Though they were introduced to encourage women players, she believes they tend to limit their ambition.

Björk: Crystalline (Omar Souleyman Remix)

Crystalline is a song from Björk's eighth album, Biophilia, and was released as a single in June 2011. Two remixes of tracks from the album by the Syrian musician Omar Souleyman.

The Guardian profiled him in 2015:

Omar Souleyman was a prolific wedding singer with more than 500 live albums to his name before civil war broke out in Syria in 2011. As his country became increasingly unstable, Souleyman fled to Turkey, where performing for couples tying the knot was no longer an option. Yet he continued to write songs of love and positivity as a welcome distraction from the horrors of war, and in the process found himself something of a star in the west.

His thumping Arabic songs aren’t the kind of world music that normally gets played in the background at barbecues, yet neither have they made their way on to the average 2am rave playlist. In fact, his dizzying use of ululating keyboards, pounding synthesised beats and throaty vocals pays homage to dabke, a Middle Eastern line-dance synonymous with weddings and other celebrations.

"They can feel the music and the rhythm of the songs," he says of his western audience, "and that fills me with pride. I’m so happy to be able to do this; few Arabic or Syrian singers have the opportunity to play festivals, or even perform outside the region."

Souleyman was arrested in Turkey a year ago on terrorism charges related to alleged membership of the Kurdistan Workers’ party. He was released two days later.

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"At many junctures in the book, the ability to think historically deserts its author. He describes men such as Hitler as 'short' when their height (5ft 8in in his case) exactly matched the average height of European men at the time; and he describes Churchill as a 'Victorian Whig', though the Whigs’ attitude to the state in legislation such as the 1834 Poor Law was entirely different to Churchill’s." In 2014 Richard J. Evans wrote an enjoyable scathing review of Boris Johnson's study of Winston Churchill.

Oz Katerji looks at the reaction to Israel's rescue of the White Helmets from Assad's Syria.

"Susan and Colin of the Weirdstone Trilogy walk the same paths that Garner walked with his father; around the Edge, up to Stormy Point and past the various wells that litter the path." Adam Scovell looks at the use of landscape in Alan Garner's fiction.

Being Donald Bradman's son was such a burden that for a while John Bradman changed his surname to Bradsen. Belinda Hawkins and Wendy Page meet the family of the greatest batsman cricket has seen.

Philip Wilkinson has found another tin tabernacle. It's at Halse near Brackley.

An Egyptian city built for Cecil B, DeMille is emerging from the Californian sand. Katya Cengel reports.

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Ruth Bright find the Liberal Democrats still have a long way to go to achieve gender balance: "I was shocked by the ... balance of male and female Lib Dem councillors on the counties."

"Ferenc Takács is a retired professor of English in Budapest, witty, urbane and past-caring enough to go on the record. 'The worst feature is the general fear in the country,' he told me. 'People won’t express views on Facebook. Teachers are afraid to say critical things about their head teacher or the government.' Matthew Engel has been to Viktor Orbán's Hungary.

"How far will the West go in deserting the Syrian Kurds in their struggle against the Turkish Islamic Ogre?" asks Renaud Girard.

Lorraine Boissoneault on Ted Kennedy, Chappaquiddick and the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.

A London Inheritance looks back to the Festival of Britain.

"The stories about the making of Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg’s Performance are almost as infamous as the movie itself," says Dangerous Minds.

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"No flourishing urban environment has developed around the Hepworth in the manner of London’s South Bank, in spite of its riverside location." Matthew Green visits Wakefield and asks what can be done to revive its economy and those of similar places.

Osita Nwanevu explains why the alt-right hates Donald Trump's air strike against Syria.

"Making streets not just safe but obviously safe will require years of effort and some politically very tricky decisions." Peter Walker explains why scrapping speed bumps is a ludicrous solution to air pollution.

"A lot of us had been in combat over the last few weeks, some of us had fought hand-to-hand and many of us had seen acts of incredible bravery but what those scouts did beggared belief. They were civilians, children really and they stayed there, under fire, with a very real risk of getting killed to give us food and water." Keith Marsh relates a remarkable wartime experience of his father's.

Londonist surveys the remains of London's workhouses.

York Stories looks at the restoration of the Tuke house and the Rigg monument, which can both be found close to Walmgate Bar (and have both featured on this blog).

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Mark Pack finds that Jeremy Corbyn does not want to raise human rights abuses backed by Russia with the Russian ambassador.

Will Brexit mean cheaper food? Harry Wallop has his doubts.

Amanda Froelich takes us to Asia's first vertical forest.

"Normally when you’ve got a British county whose name ends in -shire, it’s named after its county town (or, in a few cases, its ex county-town). But there’s no Shrop in Shropshire. So, why’s it called that?" John Elledge discovers the derivation of English county names.

"Love offers the dream of an escape from performance (‘We won’t have time for such, / Such fancy pantomimes’) – but first, it leads inexorably into it." Richard O'Brien offers a close reading of Jake Thackray's song Lah-Di-Dah.

Clint Eastwood was cast in A Fistful of Dollars only because Charles Bronson asked for too much money. Mark Harris relates some spaghetti Western history.

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Vinous Ali has visited the refugee camps of Northern Greece with Tim Farron.

The House of Lords by-election to replace Eric Avebury is ludicrous and should be boycotted, say John Lubbock and Seth Thévoz.

"There will be no incumbents, and few of the ex-MEPs are expected to run ... So, there is every possibility that new names may emerge and end up as Liberal Democrat MEPs." Mark Valladares says the forthcoming selections for Liberal Democrat Euro candidates will be the most open yet.

Kyra Hanson on guerrilla gardening and the battle against concrete paving and private development in London.

"Verification and fact-checking are regularly falling prey to the pressure to bring in the numbers, and if the only result of being caught out is another chance to bring in the clicks, that looks unlikely to change." Kevin Rawlinson on the new plague of fake news stories.

Flickering Lamps visits Brompton Cemetery and returns with tales of soldiers and adventurers - and rumours of a time machine.

Former prisoner of war camp, Gaulby Lane, Billesdon

Billesdon's Woodland Pool nature reserve can be found just outside the village on Gaulby Lane.

With woodland and a pool it is a pleasant spot, but it has a surprising history.

Because the reserve occupies the site of a wartime prisoner of war camp that held first Italian and then German prisoners.

The remains are labelled and, according to Derelict Places, there is a hut still standing (which I failed to find). Another is said to have gone to Thurnby to be used by a youth club.

And the pool was dug out on the site of the camp's football pitch.

After the war the camp housed people displaced by the war.

It is a sobering thought, on a day when refugees are being bundled out of Europe, that they once found a home among the green hills and ridge-and-furrow fields of High Leicestershire.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Giving Isis one up the snoot

Who would have thought it? The old boy turns out to be a bit of a hawk on Syria

One up the snoot for Isis

In my view defence questions resemble a closely fought by-election: if someone is out to get you then you give them one up the snoot at the earliest opportunity. Thus I was happy to support the idea of lobbing the occasional bomb at ISIS (the Boat Race has deteriorated since my day). Let us remember that they attacked people going to a footer match, out for dinner at a restaurant and listening to the Eagles of Death Metal, who so enlivened a tea dance at Uppingham last summer.

Thank goodness there was no move to invade Syria the way we used to invade countries under Blair. It wasn't the soldiers the Iraqis and Afghanistanis objected to so much as what came after. Health workers to enforce safe drinking guidelines; animal welfare inspectors to measure the camels; social workers from Islington to enforce Jack Straw's National Bedtime.

Just after I had written this the telephone was brought to me; it turned out to be Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, who has called for ‘peace talks’ with ISIS. “What concessions will you demand?” I asked her. “I’m going to ask them to throw homosexuals off slightly lower buildings.”

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

• A shadow cabinet maker

Paddy Ashdown and Labour MP send joint letter on Syria

Embed from Getty Images

Paddy Ashdown and Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, have written a joint letter to David Cameron calling on him to involve the RAF in getting aid to the starving inhabitants of the of Madaya in Syria.

The letter begins:

The images and stories from besieged Madaya in Syria are truly shocking. 

According to reports, in the past month alone 31 civilians have died in Madaya as a result of starvation or attempted escape, while the UN estimates that 400,000 remain besieged across the country. 

We find it astonishing that so little has been done by the international community to break these sieges when life-saving medical and food aid are often only minutes away,

And they conclude:

We urge you to push the UN, in particular the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to be far bolder in its aid delivery and stop asking unnecessary permission from the Syrian government. 

In the case that the UN continues to be denied access to these besieged areas by the Assad regime, the UK should strongly consider airdropping aid to those communities at risk of starvation. In some of these areas, the RAF is already flying anti-ISIS missions, and if necessary this is something we should press our European partners to support. 

Like the airdrops by the US in 2014 to the Yazidis in Iraq, and the leadership shown by the last Conservative Government to save lives with similar action in Northern Iraq, there are immediate steps we can take to stop more vulnerable people dying needlessly of hunger. We cannot sit by and watch this happen.

Read the full letter.

Mark Steel, whataboutery and polytoynbeeism

Outrageous that Corbyn goes to a Stop the War dinner - he should go to dinners held by arms dealers and offshore bankers like a proper MP.

— Mark Steel (@mrmarksteel) December 11, 2015

Back in September I suggested that "whataboutery is pretty much all that enthusiasts for Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party have to offer".

Certainly that trope is alive and well amongst them, judging by the number of times this has been retweeted into my timeline.

The truth, of course, is that it is perfectly possible to believe Corbyn is wrong to hang out with apologists for Putin and Assad and to believe it is wrong for MPs to allows themselves to be wined and dined by arms dealers and offshore bankers.

Still, whataboutery does represent a new departure for Mark Steel. In the past he has relied solely upon polytoynbeeism:

Mark Steel has based a whole stand up and journalistic career on this trick. His every column or routine runs in essence: "So the Tories say X do they? I expect they say Y and Z too!" And everyone laughs. 

They laugh because this technique is a form of political group grooming. It reminds you how generous and sensible you and your allies are, and how cruel and stupid your opponents are.

But then Steel had to broaden his range when he left the SWP in 2008 (but was kept on by Radio 4 even so). For, as Harry's Blog pointed out at the time:

Given that Mark Steel's comedy routine consists of reciting the editorials from last week's Socialist Worker in a "blokey" voice, I wonder what he'll do for material in the future.

So well done Mark. Maybe your comic repertoire will be so broad one day that you will be able to come out against fascists and semi-fascists like Assad and Putin.

Liberal Democrat MPs to back air strikes against Isil in Syria

Former Deputy Prime Minister @Nick_Clegg: sets out why @LibDems think UK should be part of multilateral airstrikes: https://t.co/DBowrFAPXr.

— Darren McCaffrey (@DMcCaffreySKY) December 1, 2015

It is a horribly difficult decision, but I think this is the right call. And I am pleased that all eight (count 'em of our MPs will be voting the same way.

Nick Clegg explained some of the thinking behind this decision in an interview with the Yorkshire Post today.

I wonder if his prominence today reflects an acceptance that he should have accepted the foreign affairs post he was offered when Tim Farron became leader?

Anyway, this is what he said:

"I'm minded to support the extension. Not really because of the military argument because just as much as opponents exaggerate the risks, we are already in a war with Isil. We are already chucking bombs at them and I think people slightly exaggerate what a step it is when they criticise it." 

"Equally I think people who overstate what will be gained militarily are also overstating their case. The idea that extra British bombs will militarily change the dynamic completely is stretching credibility. 

"I just don't think anyone should overstate the case for or against. We are already at war, we are already dropping bombs from 30,000 feet, we are already conducting surveillance missions over Syria, they are already attacking us, they've already murdered Brits on the beaches of Tunisia. It's already highly likely there's going to be an attack on British soil at some point." 

He said France's request for help from the RAF had been a key moment in helping him make up his mind. 

"[France] are an incredibly important ally of ours. If that had happened in London and we asked the French, I think we would want the French to try and help us out as one of our closest, nearest neighbours," he said.

Paddy Ashdown on what we should do next in Syria

The former Liberal Democrat has an article on the Guardian website (and probably in tomorrow's paper, though the site no longer tells you that).

The problem?

Our presumption was that the days of Russian power in the Middle East were over. But today Russia has more influence from the north-east corner of the Mediterranean through to Iran than ever before. None of this is due to Putin’s genius. It is due to our follies.

The solution?

What all this amounts to is a twin-track strategy. Continuing with military action, while recognising that it will have little effect beyond illustrating to Putin that there are limits to his room for manoeuvre; but shifting our main effort to regional diplomacy, where we can now best outflank him. Then we can begin the task that we all know must be done one day – laying down the basis for the political solution without which Syria and its tortured people can never have peace.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: As our Lord said (and I think rightly)

And so another week at Bonkers Hall draws to a close. If you wish to know more about the old brute, read Twenty Years of Lord Bonkers.

Monday

Walking by the shore this morning I see that a craft loaded to the gunwales (whatever they are) with people has run aground in the shallows. It turns out that the passengers have made their way from Syria risking gunfire, high explosives and the Rutland Water Monster. Naturally, I give orders for them to be put up at the Hall.

As our Lord said (and I think rightly): "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.


Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

Tuesday: Straight Outta Nick Compton
Wednesday: "Row Splits Liberal Party"
Thursday: Paying our respects to Stephen Lewis
Friday: On the even side of the street
Saturday: Freddie and Fiona OBE
Sunday: A prayer for Tim Farron

Aylan Kurdi and Saint Joan

Why does it take a photograph of a drowned child to make people care about Syrian refugees?

I have seen more than one person asking that on Twitter today. Their implication was that the rest of us should be ashamed of ourselves for being insufficiently logical.

The truth is that people do not live by words and logic alone. Images matter too.

I have been thinking today of George Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan.

In it John de Stogumber, chaplain to the Earl of Warwick, is a boneheaded Englishman. In another age he would have been a hardline Protestant if not a Ukip candidate.

He is a great enthusiast for the prosecution and execution of Joan of Arc, until he encounters the reality...

I let them do it. If I had known, I would have torn her from their hands. You don't know: you haven't seen: it is so easy to talk when you don't know. You madden yourself with words: you damn yourself because it feels grand to throw oil on the flaming hell of your own temper. 

But when it is brought home to you; when you see the thing you have done; when it is blinding your eyes, stifling your nostrils, tearing your heart, then--then--[Falling on his knees] O God, take away this sight from me!

Or as David Hume put it:

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

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© Dani Kropivnik

Amanda Taub says German Chancellor Angela Merkel did something really good this week: "Her country will now allow Syrian refugees, who normally would be deported back to wherever they first entered the European Union, to stay and apply for asylum. Thousands of Syrians who would have otherwise faced uncertainty in Europe can now begin the process of rebuilding their lives in Germany."

Jeremy Corbyn misunderstands the situation in Ukraine, argues Halya Coynash.

Rob Parsons asks if the number of graduates working in non-graduate jobs is a sign of overqualification or an underperforming economy.

"The fight to save the Gladstone Arms is a small part of a much bigger fight: to save the life and soul of London, and to uphold values greater and more enduring than money." Three cheers for Peter Oborne and Anne Williams.

The return of pine martens to England could lead to a resurgence of red squirrels. Emma Sheehy looks at the evidence.

Sarah Miller Walters looks at what the Carry On stars did in World War II. Some of them were at it for years.

It seems the Harborough Mail is now an authority on the Middle East

Haaretz bills itself as "the world's leading English-language website for real-time news and analysis of Israel and the Middle East".

Today, as a reader has kindly pointed out to me on Twitter, it quoted David Cameron as calling for an "unconditional, immediate humanitarian cease-fire" in Gaza, and warning that future prospects of a two-state solution were quickly dwindling.

Its source for this important intervention?

"A British daily called the Harborough Mail."

I know what happened: the Harborough Mail has recently taken to running agency copy on national and international news stories on its website, and one of those must have popped up in one of Haaretz's searches.

Still, it doesn't give you enormous confidence in that Haaretz's understanding of British sources. The Harborough Mail, of course, is not a daily but a very local weekly.

Coming soon: The Ludlow & Tenbury Wells Advertiser on how to deal with ISIS in Syria.

Kenneth Clarke on Paddy Ashdown on Tony Blair

Kenneth Clarke - surely the real-life Peter Mannion? - was interviewed by Andy McSmith in Sunday Independent:

He fears that the long shadow of the Iraq war is diminishing the UK as an actor on the world stage. He suspects that part of the reason David Cameron was defeated in the Commons when he proposed to punish the Syrian regime for using chemical weapons was a “sense of guilt” over Iraq. 

Clarke opposed the war at the time – unlike David Cameron and the majority of Tories – but acquits Tony Blair of the charge that he deliberately lied over Iraq’s weaponry. He remembers Blair addressing the Commons long after the invasion, still arguing his case with total conviction like “the last man living who still really believes they are going to find weapons of mass destruction… 

"One of the funniest things ever said to me about Tony Blair – it was by Paddy Ashdown – was: ‘The trouble with Tony is that he always believes everything he says when he is saying it’."

It is enjoying a summer break at the moment, but this is a chance to say how good McSmith's diary in the Independent is.

In an era when other such columns subsist on yesterday's leavings from social media, he still finds original stories.

Conservative confusion over the Ukraine

As Isabel Hardman reports on the Spectator Coffee House blog, some Conservatives are trying to link Putin heedless behaviour over the Ukraine with Labour's refusal to back British military intervention in Syria.

Truly, there is no end to the courage of the laptop warrior. And, as Hardman says, this approach ignores the fact that 30 Conservative backbenchers voted against military intervention in Syria too.

It also ignores the view of the senior Conservative MP Edward Leigh, as stated in the Commons on Friday:

May I express that last question in a slightly gentler way by asking if we can avoid any Russophobia in this debate? “Ukrayina” means “borderland” in Russian, and Ukraine has always been a legitimate sphere of Russian interest. In the shape of the Kievan Rus, it was the foundation of the modern Russian state in 800 AD, so can we accept that only the Russians can bail out this state to any significant extent and we have to work with them?

With views like that, Leigh could replace Seamus Milne at the Guardian.