Free Republic

Sir Keir Starmer urged Volodymyr Zelensky to return to the White House and patch up his relationship with Donald Trump after the shouting match in the Oval Office, it has emerged.

Citrus Heights Homes Displaying American Flags Targeted By ArsonistsCITRUS HEIGHTS (CBS13) — Police are investigating a string of arsons, targeting Citrus Heights homes with American flags on display.At least four homes were targeted in the Sungarden neighborhood early Saturday morning. So far, police say they don’t know the motive.…Michael Howard has lived here for a decade. He was busy cleaning up some of the ashes left from the fires. “This is the first time anything’s happened,” Howard said. “Gut reaction? Is it somebody with an agenda?” Citrus Heights police are investigating the arsons and so far don’t know the motive,...

When Michael Howard arrives for a checkup with his lung specialist, he's worried about how his body will cope with the heat and humidity of a Boston summer. "I lived in Florida for 14 years and I moved back because the humidity was just too much," Howard tells pulmonologist Mary Rice, as he settles into an exam room chair at a Beth Israel Deaconess HealthCare clinic. Howard, who is 57, has COPD, a progressive lung disease that can be exacerbated by heat and humidity. Even inside a comfortable, climate-controlled room, his oxygen levels worry Rice. Howard reluctantly agrees to try...

Then Howard turns to Rice with a question she didn't encounter in medical school: "Can I ask you: Last summer, why was it so hot?" "The overall trend of the hotter summers that we're seeing [is] due to climate change," Rice says, "and with the overall upward trend, we've got the consequences of climate change." For Rice, connecting those consequences — heat waves, more pollen, longer allergy seasons — to her patients' health is becoming routine. She is among a very small but growing number of doctors and nurses who discuss those connections with patients.

The Nation -- Why would Australian Prime Minister Michael Howard separate out Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) from all of the other contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and from all the prominent Democratic and Republican critics of President Bush's dangerous foreign policies -- for attack as the favorite son of the terrorists? Why would Howard, suggest that the Illinois senator's candidacy will "encourage those who wanted completely to destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory"? What was Howard thinking when he claimed in...

New HampshireThe day after the election, the BBC reported that the Iranian government was interested in buying MG Rover. This was a useful reminder of what one might call the internal contradictions of Blairism. It would be difficult to imagine circumstances in which the mullahs would buy, say, General Motors, yet here was George W. Bush’s alleged poodle presiding over a land where what’s left of the native automobile industry is happy to become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Axis of Evil. I’ve no idea what MG Rover makes these days, but no doubt it will soon be changed...

On election day, I happened to be motoring through the leafy lanes of Warwickshire, and thinking, as I do every couple of years or so, well, maybe I ought to get out the car and pick up some local colour and so forth. And, just as the thought occurred, I passed a Porsche dealership and a riding club and I realised, oh, no, I'm in Solihull. Nothing against Solihull, I hasten to add, but let's face it, it's not exactly the liveliest posting on anybody's election battleground map. "Conservative since the dawn of time," as the chap on the BBC's...

Americans are accustomed to thinking of Britain as their most reliable ally, always there in a crisis. Broadly speaking that has been true since 1941 — and mutual. With the exception of a few wobbles like Suez and Edward Heath's refusal of landing rights to U.S. planes supplying arms to Israel in the Yom Kippur war, the Brits have shared a common approach with the U.S. on defense policy, intelligence cooperation, nuclear weapons, trade liberalization, and much else. Margaret Thatcher's backing for Reagan's Libyan raid and Tony Blair's commitment of British forces to the Iraq war strengthened this habitual cooperation....

Gamble that was Howard's way FRASER NELSON POLITICAL EDITOR THE Conservatives took a leap in the dark with their 2005 campaign. They used guerrilla tactics, "dog whistles" and character attacks more vicious than anything used before. Today, they are analysing their gamble. Lynton Crosby, the Australian author of the campaign, was treated to a standing ovation as he addressed Central Office workers on Tuesday. His imported tactics seemed to bring the Tories back from the dead. But when asked later if he deserved the applause, he was sanguine. "I don’t have a clue," he said. "We’ll find out on Friday."...

The BBC is reporting that Michael Howard is to step down as Tory leader. Nothing more yet, just a banner headline.

Conservative challenger Michael Howard is trailing Prime Minister Tony Blair in the British polls, and Margaret Thatcher has had enough. Facing the possibility of her cherished Tory Party losing to Blair again, and upset at the possibility that Labour will be leading England's government again, Thatcher skipped town for a little holiday - just days before the election. She is not campaigning for Howard, and British papers quote a close friend of the baroness as saying, "She wants to see a Conservative government again. She is frustrated that is not going to happen, despite the Labour Government's serious shortcomings and...

John Kerry's problem last November was that he wasn't Tony Blair. Had the Democrats managed to find a candidate who was fierce and clear-sighted on the war but a big nanny-state control-freak on health, education and all the other pantywaist stuff, they might well have pulled it off. Iraq wasn't going so well, if only in media terms; Mr Bush was a controversial figure; and, for all the weary repetition of the allegedly inviolable rule that "Americans don't switch commanders-in-chief in the middle of a war", recent history suggests that wartime presidencies usually cease well before the hostilities do (Johnson...

The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader. The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party". These included...

The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader. The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party". These included...

In yesterday's Daily Telegraph, Paul Burstow, the Liberal Democrats' health spokesperson, was asked for his reaction to the latest survey on attitudes to the NHS. "These figures," he said, "show that what people want is to have control over their health and their health care. That means better information and opportunities to make healthy choices." No, it doesn't. That second sentence is a lot of soothing somnolent buzz words - "opportunity", "choice" - but it bears no relation to the first. The reason people don't have "control" over their health care is because the government has control over it. If...

(This is part of the transcript of Mark Steyn interviewed by Hugh Hewitt talking about seal hunts and environmentalism in Canada and the upcoming British general election. The complete version includes Hillary Clinton and US senate judicial confirmations as well and could be found at the link provided above) It's the middle of the week, and so with great anticipation, Mark Steyn begins the Hugh Hewitt Show. Last week, I posted the transcript, and was overwhelmed with the response. So without further adieu, here's Hugh Hewitt and Mark Steyn: HH: I want to start with a Candian story. Up in...

Labour and the Liberal Democrats attempted to paint Michael Howard as an extreme Right-winger on immigration yesterday amid signs that his policy is winning widespread support. In what appeared to be a co-ordinated ploy, the two parties accused the Conservative leader of crudely exploiting the issue in order to boost the Tories' chances on May 5. Last night evidence of a Tory surge was confirmed when a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph put Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck on 36 per cent. The Liberal Democrats are on 20 per cent and other parties eight per cent. The...

While most national polls seem to suggest Labour Party candidate Tony Blair will be re-elected to a third term as Britain's prime minister in the upcoming May 5 elections, there are reasons to believe an upset may be afoot and that the rival conservative Tories have a decent chance to recapture 10 Downing Street. The Economist reports that most polls currently have Blair still "comfortably" ahead, with the most reliable pollster, ICM, giving Blair an 8-point lead. But, the magazine says, Labour "lost ground heavily during both the 1997 and 2001 elections," with its average poll rating falling off by...

LONDON, April 5 - After months of speculation and political maneuvering, Prime Minister Tony Blair called Tuesday for an election on May 5, seeking a record-setting third term in office by offering voters "a big and positive vision for the future of our country." Mr. Blair is already Britain's longest-serving Labor prime minister, and a third consecutive term would be the first on record for his party. The announcement coincided with a wave of opinion surveys suggesting that Mr. Blair's Labor Party was losing ground to the opposition Conservatives. On Tuesday, Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, urged Britons to choose...

Time to make yobs fear the police again, says Howard By George Jones, Political Editor(Filed: 01/04/2005)Michael Howard promised yesterday to combat a growing "yob culture" that was turning town and city centres into no-go areas at night and weekends.He would ensure that lawless teenagers once again feared the police, he said.   Tough love: Mr Howard ‘wants yobs looking round in fear’ A Conservative government would end the "defensive policing" and political correctness that had allowed teenage yobs free rein.As home secretary in the last Tory government, Mr Howard angered libertarians with his tough law and order policies, claiming...