Obituaries have been coming in for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed by Israel three days ago in Beirut. Some can’t resist lavishing the praise…
The FT’s obituary describes the terrorist leader as a “strategic thinker” with a “commanding presence …a man feared and admired in equal measure.” Those who met him said he was “courteous, perceptive and funny” – “a powerful orator… fixated on resistance to Israel.” Glowing…
The FT finishes off by noting sympathetically that Nasrallah said he would “absolutely not” have launched the attack that triggered the 2006 conflict with Israel “if I had known . . . that the operation would lead to such a war.” We don’t get to find out if he really learned his lesson…
Not much mention of Nasrallah’s recent calls to kill all gays, let alone Hezbollah’s countless global terrorist atrocities.
The Observer’s obituary is similarly full of praise, describing Nasrallah as a “consensual national figure” who was “adored by supporters,” and who displayed “a dignified response” when his son was killed. It adds that in 2022 Hezbollah “agreed a maritime and gas field demarcation agreement with Israel,” but Nasrallah was killed for “showing solidarity with Hamas after 7th October.“ Some people just can’t help themselves…
Vogue has now published its gushing meetup with the thirteen female Labour MPs it deems are “set to redefine what power means in modern Britain.” Hilariously 20% of them aren’t even Labour MPs any more…
Hard left MPs Apsana Begum and Zarah Sultana have already been kicked out of the party by Starmer for rebelling over child benefit. Vogue singles out now-independent Begum because she’s “Britain’s first hijab-wearing politician”…
Corbynite Bell Ribeiro-Addy’s primary contribution to the election was claiming Sunak’s “entire election campaign is going to be based on racism” – she spends the rest of her time heading up the APPG for “Afrikan Reparations.” Hard-left Corbyn fan girl MP Nadia Whittome mostly complains about NHS ‘privatisation’ in order to rehash arguments from 2019. If Vogue is to be believed the Socialist Campaign Group has its grip on the levers of power…
Veteran wonk Sam Bowman pointed out on Twitter that BBC Verify seems to have slowed down recently with old stories on its top page. Sure enough, only half of the top stories you see when landing on its page are from this week. Scroll down and more items are from June. One is even from December last year…
Guido got in touch with the BBC to ask about this and was told that it’s “completely untrue to say that there have been cuts to Verify… It’s business as usual.” That is: “it’s always been like this”…
According to an FOI request from Guido, the BBC moved staff from other departments into the BBC Verify Team this year – As of February 2024 there were 63 people with combined salary costs of a whopping £3.2 million. Last month they advertised a correspondent position in the team for £69,000…
According to the ‘latest updates’ section, since the beginning of last week Verify has produced nine stories. Nine stories in twelve days – that’s 32 hours per story. It also means that the 63 staff have been paid around £13,675 per article. Maybe the BBC should verify this project’s value for taxpayer money…
In the early hours of the morning freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich landed at Joint Airbase Andrews in Maryland. The freed political prisoners were greeted by Biden and Harris…
The prisoner exchange included Gershkovkich, who had been held for 490 days on fantasy espionage charges, the former US marine Paul Whelan, arrested in 2018 after being accused of spying, and the journalist and Radio Free Europe’s Alsu Kurmasheva. Russia got eight nationals in return, three held in US prisons. Andrew Sullivan said that opposition politician Alexei Navalny was meant to be part of the deal…
The prisoner swap took place in Ankara yesterday. Welcome home.
On Greenland, President Trump said during his Davos speech:
“All I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and very poorly located. It’s a very small ask considering what we’ve given them [NATO] for decades..We want a piece of ice for world protection. ”
