London, Glasgow Univ. A Test for Europe (1996), Britain & the Balkans (2006), The Balkans on Trial: Justice v Realpolitik (Routledge 2019). Views my own
Scotland
Joined November 2013
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On reflection, do you not see that as one of your more embarrassing gestures, Mr Vucic? The Serbian flag under your rule was a symbol of authoritarianism, and worse.
Одлучио сам да са собом понесем заставу Србије коју сам огрнуо током борбе у Уједињеним нацијама, када смо успели да победимо иницијативу најмоћнијих земаља света да прогласе наш народ геноцидним.
Вратићу заставу у наше институције онда када будем сигуран да ће се према њој односити с поштовањем које заслужује и да је неће уништити, као што уништавају мурале наших светаца широм Србије.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Video u objavi prikazuje AI-generisane snimke navodnog prefarbavanja murala svetaca, dok građani čiste uvredljive političke grafite poput „fck blk“, SNS slogana i pro-Mladić natpisa.
bangkokpost.com/world/3345300/…
telegraf.rs/vesti/beograd/…
vreme.com/vesti/srbija-n…
x.com/brezaleksandar…
carole hodge retweeted
The leading advocate for climate justice and Palestinian rights has been blocked from coming to the UK by the Home Office. Politicians, academics and writers have condemned this outrageous act of censorship.
tribunemag.co.uk/2026/10/and…
Agreed, but the 'arrogant unelected elite' did make a point which is all too often forgotten, and for which no British (or American) politician has been held to account.
Campbell raised Brexit to shut down the legitimate, and more serious, point (albeit by a Reform member) that hundreds of thousands were killed in Iraq in an invasion that had no int'l legitimacy, based on a false premise, which Campbell seems to have blithely drawn a line under.
Alastair Campbell, "I will say to Zia Yusuf and his friend Nigel Farage"
"Brexit has taken 6-8% out of economy"
"If we had not left, the Chancellor today would have had £90 billion more to spend"
"He could have doubled the defence budget"
Fiona Bruce, "That is a projection Alastair, no one can be sure about that"
Alastair Campbell, "And added 50% to the health budget as well"
"The people who gave us Brexit now want to give you another set of false promises"
"Do not fall for them because they are a bunch of conmen. They're being found out. And its one reason why Nigel Farage will never be Prime Minister of this country"
My view:
Fiona Bruce was quick to dismiss Campbell’s figures as “a projection”. But that shouldn’t be a way to shut down the argument.
Campbell was making a point about what Brexit has cost the country: on his figures, a 6–8% hit to the economy means around £90 billion less for the Chancellor to spend—enough, he said, to double the defence budget or increase health spending by 50%.
And remember what Nigel Farage was saying in 2016: that even without a trade deal, Britain would be better off than it was then. The evidence points the other way.
The OBR estimates that Brexit will leave UK productivity around 4% lower than it would have been inside the EU; other studies put the economic hit higher. That means we’re poorer than we would have been had we stayed.
So yes, these are estimates—but the claims made by Brexit’s champions were projections too. Bruce’s caveat shouldn’t obscure the central question Campbell raised: how much has Brexit cost us, and what could that money have done for the country?
carole hodge retweeted
I don't care who says it, or what political party they represent. When it comes to Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell, the Iraq War must never be forgotten, and neither should those responsible for taking Britain into it.
Last night on BBC Question Time, @ZiaYusufUK called Alastair Campbell a "war criminal" to his face. Campbell didn't appear to take kindly to the accusation. But then, the families of those who died in Iraq have had rather more to endure than a few uncomfortable moments on national television.
What makes it all the more galling is how readily the British establishment rehabilitates its own. Catastrophic decisions that cost thousands of lives are treated as unfortunate chapters in otherwise distinguished careers. Accountability, it seems, is reserved for those without the right connections.
Tony Blair was awarded the Order of the Garter, one of Britain's highest honours. Alastair Campbell reinvented himself as a podcast statesman, dispensing lectures on honesty, decency and political integrity to an audience apparently willing to overlook his part in selling the Iraq War.
For those at the top, reputations can be rebuilt. For the dead, there is no such luxury.
The facts do not care about their polished reputations. One hundred and seventy-nine British service personnel came home in boxes from an illegal war built on cooked intelligence, sexed-up dossiers, and sheer imperial vanity. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis paid for that catastrophic lie with their lives, their families, and the total ruin of their homeland.
Robin Cook had the spine to resign on principle, warning Parliament of the abyss ahead. David Kelly, a decent civil servant trapped in Downing Street's spin machine, ended up dead in an Oxfordshire wood.
The political class will tell you it was a different time, that good men acted in good faith on flawed intelligence, or that we must move forward. It is pure self-exoneration. If an ordinary working man lied about his credentials and caused the death of one person, he would spend decades behind bars.
When power commits murder on an industrial scale, Britain does not build a dock for the accused. It builds them a career.
The architects of the invasion received honours and rehabilitation. The dead received no second chance.
Blair's central role in the NATO action in Kosovo saved many lives and ended Milosevic's apartheid regime. But this success seemingly spurred him on, as he attempted to replicate it in Afghanistan & Iraq with disastrous consequences.
Gaza may prove to be his final undoing.
carole hodge retweeted
Zašto nazivate NATO agresija? Upozoreni ste 100 pita da prestanete sa agresijom i okupacijom, ali niste slušali. NATO vas je zaustavio i to je bio jedini način da svetosavski agresori prestanu sa zlom u regiji. Zao mi je ako je poginuo neko nevin, ali to prepišite vasoj politici
Certainly not in Bosnia's interests. Could it be connected to Rs/Dodik's recent pact with the Trump Administration, which may have involved a considerable payout. If so, where did the money come from?
This position is unlikely to have had the support of most Bosnian citizens.
Why did Bosnia and Herzegovina change its position and vote against ending the US embargo on Cuba, instead of abstaining as it did last year? Who made this decision, and in whose interests?
@LagumdzijaZ @mfa_bih
carole hodge retweeted
Ne, Novače, deo si dijaspore a nisi nas nedvosmisleno podržao. U stvari, nisi nas baš nikako podržao.
Dijaspora se dve godine borila da se glas studenata čuje u svetu. Pisali smo političarima, dovodili novinare i televizije, skupljali novac, organizovali skupove, uzimali odmore da putujemo u maticu i dočekivali studente kod nas kao najrođenije.
Mi smo obični ljudi. Svako je dao koliko je mogao.
Tvoja jedna reč otvorila bi vrata na koja smo mi mesecima kucali.
Decenijama smo te gledali kako rasteš na terenu, prolaziš kroz različite faze, pružaš podršku različitim političarima (!), opcijama (!) i ljudima. Na terenu si uvek bio najmoćniji. Bio si naša dika. I sve vreme smo navijali za tebe kao da nema sutra.
Ali kada je trebalo otvoreno stati uz studente i građane koji se bore za slobodnu Srbiju, tvoja nedvosmislena podrška je izostala.
Zato, Novače, nije red da sada, kada je pobeda tu, govoriš o podršci koju nismo glasno čuli kada je bila najpotrebnija. Mi ne znamo ni gde si glasao. Ja sam javno, pred kamerama nemačkog prvog TV programa.
Na terenu si bio šampion. Ali van terena, Novače, danas ostavljaš utisak samo još jednog od onih koji se priklanjaju pobedničkoj strani. A mi kao društvo moramo jednom zauvek prestati da slavimo one koji se priključuju tek kada je pobednik poznat.
Jer podrška pobedniku nije isto što i hrabrost da staneš uz nekoga dok još može da izgubi.
Ako želimo suštinsku promenu ovog društva, moramo prestati da mešamo te dve stvari. I da imamo stav i prema sopstvenim (bivšim) idolima.
@DjokerNole
carole hodge retweeted
ko iz Srbije bude komunicirao s državom BiH i gl. gradom, a ne samo sa nižom administr. jedinicim koja je nastala genocidim, taj ima šanse da nešto promijeni; RS je stečevina ratnih osvajanja i kome ona i dalje bude primat, taj je nastavljač kolonijalne politike SM i AV.
carole hodge retweeted
Watch, feel her rage, and understand why she proposed ‘Zionism is Racism’.
Watch this.
Lubna Speitan, author of the Greens4Palestine motion “Zionism is racism”, spells out the central obscenity of our age – the grotesque inversion whereby the victims of ethnic cleansing, Apartheid and genocide must constantly fend off accusations from their tormentors that it is they who are the racists.
“We as Palestinians are being silenced and gaslit and vilified [as we] witness the annihilation, the cold-blooded murder of our families, of our people… our children burnt with phosphorus, having to endure amputations with no anaesthetic, having their limbs torn and shredded, their bodies burnt by phosphorus, being starved to death … And to have to sit here … and try to bury my feelings so I can eloquently and diplomatically shield my anger, my rage, my anguish that every Palestinian is feeling, is an insult.” /1
carole hodge retweeted
When will Serbia have its ‘Willy Brandt moment’ and beg forgiveness for its crimes against neighbours?
Meet Nemanja Karović: a Student List representative who, in this interview on Serbian state TV, denies the Srebrenica Genocide, in which 8,372 Bosniaks were murdered by Ratko Mladić’s Republika Srpska Army.
Karović also denies that the Republika Srpska was founded on genocidal atrocities, despite the military campaign of “ethnic cleansing” Serb forces (trained/sponsored by Belgrade) committed in N/E Bosnia during the entity’s inception, filmed by British journalists and confirmed by forensics at the mass graves of Bosnian civilians.
If the Student List is serious about making a break with Vučić’s Serbia (and that’s a big if), they will have no qualms about expelling Karović from the movement and condemning his genocide denial.
Let’s see.
carole hodge retweeted
Meet Nemanja Karović: a Student List representative who, in this interview on Serbian state TV, denies the Srebrenica Genocide, in which 8,372 Bosniaks were murdered by Ratko Mladić’s Republika Srpska Army.
Karović also denies that the Republika Srpska was founded on genocidal atrocities, despite the military campaign of “ethnic cleansing” Serb forces (trained/sponsored by Belgrade) committed in N/E Bosnia during the entity’s inception, filmed by British journalists and confirmed by forensics at the mass graves of Bosnian civilians.
If the Student List is serious about making a break with Vučić’s Serbia (and that’s a big if), they will have no qualms about expelling Karović from the movement and condemning his genocide denial.
Let’s see.
carole hodge retweeted
ja ću Srbiji čestitati kad mi plati ratnu odštetu za opljačkan imetak i život koji smo gradili decenijama; kad mi vrate zapaljene fotografije, zgaženu odjeću, dignu kuću i stan iz pepela. do tad budite daleko od mene i ove zemlje. dobrim ljudima tamo, pak, želim sve najbolje.
carole hodge retweeted
Bosnia’s political system is engineered around ethnic quotas and power-sharing deals, putting voters’ choices second.
No wonder people lose faith in elections and stop voting when they feel the system won’t let them decide who represents them.
I'm guessing @USEmbassySJJ welcoming the thieves didn't give CIK any incentive to do the right thing, if anything, it pushed them to just accept the lies. In any case, thank you for sharing.
Good question.
The US (Trump) administration has undermined the Dayton Peace Agreement of which it was the main drafter.
If this stands, the whole Dayton constitutional arrangement is called into question.
carole hodge retweeted
Enough appeasement of Serbia’s demands. @albinkurti must stand firm. Kosovo must not be forced into another unworkable arrangement like the one in Bosnia, which fuels endless obstruction and blackmail. The West must stop imposing failed solutions.
@bundeskanzler
🔴Germany Dangling EU Pathway 'Carrot' to Force Kosovo Acceptance of Contested Serb Autonomy wanted by Serbia and backed by Russia too dtt-net.com/germany-dangling…
carole hodge retweeted
Kosovo’s case followed years of repression and war. Nobody is persecuting Serbs in Bosnia as Milosevic’s regime persecuted Kosovo Albanians. You cannot use Kosovo as a blanket excuse for secession.
carole hodge retweeted
As Netanyahu starts the process of turning the West Bank into a second Gaza our government has to act. The message needs to go out that this extension of the genocide will not be tolerated. Full sanctions and political isolation of Israel must be lead by the UK. theguardian.com/world/2026/o…
carole hodge retweeted
Richard Sanders Absolutely DEMOLISHES The Antisemitism in Schools Report @pularjs