With great excitement sections of the press have "revealed" that the President elect's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was tortured by the British. Whilst I'm glad to see this in the papers, seeing as Obama Jr published this himself in 1995 I'm cringing slightly at the word "revealed" here. "Revealed again" might be a bit more more appropriate. The Guardian concedes in a rather straight faced ...

Victoria Brittain has never met a terrorist, jihadist, or enemy of a liberal and multicultural society that she doesn’t admire. A former associate foreign editor of the Guardian, Brittain is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, sits on the editorial board of Race and Class, and is on the national executive council of Respect

Henry Porter, who to his immense credit has been telling it like it is on the civil liberties issue in Britain for several years, has a strong article in the Guardian on the arrest of Damian Green and the government's miserable behaviour since. As he puts it, the arrest of one of their own has finally woken MPs up to what is going on. It is hard not to feel a certain bitterness at MPs'.....

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More than 100 governments, with some notable exceptions, will sign an international convention today banning the production of cluster bombs whose unexploded canisters have killed and maimed thousands of innocent civilians and are dangerously scattered over more than 20 countries. The convention is enthusiastically welcomed today by the Red Cross, and on the Guardian's website by David Miliba...

The business secretary, Peter Mandelson, will set out plans for a new age of "industrial activism" when he gives the annual Hugo Young memorial lecture today, saying the government must do more to support services and manufacturing for after the recession, when the country will be "an even tougher place to do business in". In the Guardian lecture, Mandelson will take a break from his department�...

The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, is refusing to back down over a decision to let out its congress hall this Friday to a British company whose suppliers are alleged to use sweatshop labour in Bangladesh to manufacture cheap T shirts. This is despite pressure from two general secretaries and Labour MPs who want him to cancel the event. A letter published in today's Guardian attacks th...

Today’s Guardian carries an interview with comedian/actor Eddie Izzard: interesting for those of us who are fans (especially of his classic mid-90s’ shows), but also interesting for the problem it poses for those of us who are Lib Dems. Asked about his politics, and his long-standing support for Labour (‘he describes himself as more Blair-ite ...

John Pilger was excellent in the Guardian yesterday… “Today, a surreal event will take place in London. The Foreign Office is holding an open day “to highlight the importance of human rights in our work as part of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. There will be various “stalls” and “panel discussions”,

Laura Lamson, an American born screenwriter who lived most of her life in Britain and was a long-standing Guild member, died in October at the age of 60. She was probably best known for adapting Ann Oakley’s novel The Men’s Room for the BBC. There's an obituary in The Guardian today by Amanda...