Blog Posts by Ian Dunt

Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia threatened Britain. The Commons foreign affairs committee had the temerity to launch an inquiry into Britain's relationship with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The Saudis were "insulted". They would be "re-evaluating their country's historic relations with Britain" and "all options will be looked at", they told the BBC.

The comment was a clear threat directed at BAE System's efforts to supply the next £7 billion of Typhoon jets to the country. That's just a part of it. As the world's leading oil producer, we do about £4 billion bilateral trade with the Saudis a year. We need them more than they need us.

So today, David Cameron will prostitute himself in Saudi Arabia. "On human rights, there are no no-go areas in this relationship," he told reporters as he stopped off in Dubai. It's the same line he uses with China. It means nothing.

Cameron's cap-in-hand visit to Saudi Arabia is a betrayal of all those fighting for democracy in the Middle East and of terrorism

I'm not wearing a poppy this year. I've worn it before and I might wear it again, but every year I become more uncomfortable with it. A symbol of remembrance is fast becoming a tool of coercion.

The process is not purposeful. It is not a conspiracy. It is more dangerous than that.

The popularity of the poppy stems from a genuine pride in Britain's role in World War Two. Every country has a creation myth and it is one of the charming idiosyncrasies of Britain that such an old nation should give itself such a modern one. There is also something uniquely endearing about Britain's ability to find honour in defeat. You see it in the celebration of the charge of the light brigade, when men showed unimaginable bravery while running in the wrong direction, towards their certain death. And you see it in World War Two, where Britain's achievement was not in winning, but in resisting defeat against far mightier forces.

The poppy also represents one of the few public acknowledgements of the deaths

"The jokes have been bad and the substance has been bad," David Cameron observed halfway through PMQs. He was entirely correct about his opponent's performance, and, as it happened, about his own.

Ed Miliband is now so full of confidence he can barely wait to get going. He sits smiling, eagerly looking to the Speaker to call him, like a child in class who knows the answer. He was beaming ear to ear even as Cameron got in a preliminary attack for his "opportunism" on the EU budget. The difference on a couple of years ago is extraordinary, although he may be getting carried away slightly. His performance today did nothing to merit his enthusiasm. But then, the government shows little sign of ending its perpetual gaffes, so there are still reasons for his disposition. He must feel the sun on his back.

Miliband's newest tactic is to whip his MPs to support a Tory rebel amendment demanding a cut, rather than a freeze, in the EU budget. Cameron repeated himself as soon as the Labour leader

By Ian Dunt

Warning: Major spoilers ahead

As Skyfall ended, the credits proudly proclaimed 50 years of James Bond. That is both a celebration and a hint of how difficult it is to manage a franchise that's half a century old. James Bond is a relic of a previous age: misogynistic, imperialistic and unfeeling. For some reason, he still works. But his relationship with the modern world is problematic.

Bond writers have struggled with these difficulties for years but they came to a head when Jason Bourne came on the scene. Matt Damon's Bourne was a Bond for the new age: He was monogamous. He was reluctant to fight. Far from fighting for his country, his country was fighting him. He was in touch with his feelings. In fact, his entire character arc was based around the therapy-ideal of finding out who he really was.

The Bourne challenge was answered by Casino Royale, which saw Bond arrive in a much more vulnerable light. He could be physically hurt, but most importantly he could be

Less than two weeks ago, Alex Salmond sat next to David Cameron and signed a historic agreement on a referendum for an independent Scotland. Today, his personal reputation is in the mud, his governing majority has been reduced to one and his party is in a state of chaos. What's going on and can the SNP survive?

In truth, things turned sour for Salmond before the ink was even dry. The consensus in London is that Cameron played an uncharacteristic blinder on the referendum negotiations. Westminster only cared about restricting the referendum to one question - independence. Getting devo-max (more powers for Scotland but short of independence) off the table was the prime concern, predominantly because Scots would surely vote for it. Votes-at-16 and the precise date were easy sacrifices to make. Salmond's hard-won reputation for running rings around his opponents took a beating.

Unhappily for the first minister, the Scottish public seemed to share Westminster's view. A majority of the

"Did the liberal left establishment allow Jimmy Savile to abuse children at will?" the Mail Online asked today. Down the right-hand side of the screen there was the usual collection of teenagers in bikinis: its highly-addictive sidebar of shame.

"There are disturbing claims that there was a culture of sexual exploitation within the corporation," the Sun said in an editorial last week, a few pages after the Page 3 girl. "Taxpayers are entitled to a rigorous independent inquiry." I would absolutely love to know more about the sexual culture at the Sun which led it ask female interns to pose naked last August. I imagine it was a hotbed of liberalism and equal opportunity in the 60s and 70s, when Savile was active.

The BBC's enemies have come out to play, rubbing their hands with glee at a scandal big enough to permanently damage the corporation's reputation. If one silly phone call from Russell Brand could drive them crazy for weeks, imagine what they will do with this. The appalling

On September 4th, during his last day as international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell did something disgraceful. It was fifteen days before his expletive-filled outburst outside Downing Street, when he repeatedly called policemen "f***ing plebs" and became embroiled in a row which would poison his tenure as Tory chief whip before it even started. But the decision Mitchell made on September 4th was far, far worse.

It would stain Whitehall's reputation for international development and show the UK was willing to funnel taxpayer funds to human rights abusers in Africa, if they were fortunate enough to enjoy pleasant personal relationships with a British secretary of state.

Against the advice of his civil servants and the Foreign Office, Mitchell used his last act as international development secretary to reverse a £16 million cut to the Rwandan aid budget. Rwandan president Paul Kagame's regime is accused by human rights groups of imprisoning journalists, allowing the torture and

The EU has won the Nobel Prize. As an act of agitprop, you have to give them credit. It's going to be hugely enjoyable to watch right-wing eurosceptics froth at the mouth for the next few days. It'll be at least four days before any user comment on a website isn't entirely capped up.

The Nobel Prize has form. It gave it to Obama before he'd done anything at all — an act which seemed to embarrass him more than anyone.

You can see what they're trying to do. Firstly, they obviously plan to make all of their enemies' heads explode, like some sort of spiritual pre-emptive strike into the soul of their opponents. It's like a Finish Him move in Mortal Kombat — saying something so profoundly insane it makes your adversary spontaneously combust.

The judges in Norway, which, incidentally, isn't a member of the EU, obviously believe it needs encouragement and recognition during its darkest hour. The prize reflects how profoundly cut off from reality European supporters have become. It's quite