…. at least according to my fellow Warwickshire man William Shakespeare, it is, and that’s good because there are several theatrical things getting a mention in this post. First off, there’s “Mums” at the Soho Theatre in … er, Soho...

Perhaps we’d better get Noel Edmonds in …. all this talk of deals with the Taleban is starting to take on an air of unreality. Ahead of today’s big Afghanistan conference in London, Gordon Brown and Hamid Karzai have been speaking –...

As I was saying the other day , Obama’s promise to close Guantánamo within a year falls due, so to speak, today. It hasn’t happened. Instead, in a pale reflection of what was promised, we’ve seen just 46 of 242 prisoners transferred...

What were you doing exactly one year ago? Can’t remember? Well, chances are that at some time during 20 January 2009 you glanced at the TV news about Barack Obama being inaugurated as 44th president of the USA. (You didn’t! Well, OK...

This time a year ago the world was reeling at the scenes of devastation coming out of Gaza. Now we’re reeling at the scenes of devastation coming out of Haiti. Plus ça change. Except … Gaza was man-made, Haiti was not. Yes, the death...

Incredibly, it’s now eight years since the first shackled and orange-jump-suited prisoners were taken to the notorious prison camp at Guantánamo. Eight years. This is a long time if you’ve been found guilty of a crime and sent to...

Reports that the attorney general Lady Scotland will effectively give the Israeli authorities an assurance that none of its leaders will ever face arrest in the UK are … troubling. On what basis are the UK authorities even promising...

If the alleged would-be Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was indeed “trained” by al-Qai’da in Yemen it’s not exactly surprising that Yemen is now on everyone’s lips. But how to react? Closing embassies and talking about Yemen’s...