Utopia, you are standing in it!

1) The Times of Israel’s Raphael Ahren explains ‘Why the Palestinian case at The Hague took a big hit this past week’.

“The notion that “Palestine” is a full-fledged state that can grant jurisdiction to the International Criminal Court was dealt a serious blow over the past week, as seven countries and many scholars of international law argued that the issue was not as simple as the Palestinians and their supporters would like to make it seem.

Even some countries that have formally recognized the “State of Palestine” along the pre-1967 lines argued that Palestine cannot necessarily be considered to have validly granted the ICC jurisdiction to probe war crimes allegedly committed on its territory.

Germany, Australia, Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Uganda last week submitted written documents to The Hague, each asking to become an amicus curiae — a “friend of the court” that is…

forty quotes from and about
Richard Burgon
born 1980
Labour MP for Leeds East 2015–
shadow city minister 2015–16
shadow justice secretary 2016–

‘Richard Burgon broke convention by calling for the end to the Monarchy before affirming an oath of allegiance. “As someone that believes that the head of state should be elected I make this oath in order to serve my constituents,” he said.’ – Daily Mirror (2015) [i]

‘No-one was more surprised than me that my swearing in as an MP made the news last week.’ – Richard Burgon (2015) [ii]

‘New SNP MP Patricia Gibson flinched in disgust after one of her colleagues broke wind in the Commons. Shocked Patricia was caught on camera recoiling in horror when Labour rival Richard Burgon let off during a debate. She could be seen on telly covering her mouth and trying to waft away the nauseating stench as Mr Burgon ignored…

In the ever-lengthening list of UKIP leaders, Baron Pearson of Rannoch was far from the worst. Nor, however, was he much good. He spent just ten months in the job, during which time he oversaw the disappointing general election result of 2010, when the average vote for a UKIP candidate fell below that for the BNP. Perhaps, though, he’d already made his contribution to the party, even before joining, by providing it with a mission statement.

He’d originally been a Conservative – he got his peerage from Margaret Thatcher – but had felt frustrated by its mealy-mouthed espousal of Euroscepticism. He was still a Tory when, during the 2004 campaign for the European Parliament elections, he called for people to vote UKIP. ‘The only party which might save our democracy, our right to govern ourselves, from the corrupt octopus in Brussels is the Conservatives,’ he said. ‘But the only people…