Britain 2005

Once again, the sense of something distinctly unpleasant in British public life: the Guardian reports that Israeli academics who refuse to condemn their government's actions in the occupied territories risk a boycott by the UK's leading university teachers' union, the AUT. Coming right on the heels of the recent publicly-made anti-Semitic remarks by London's Mayor Livingstone, this again makes one wonder just where British society is headed in the mid-2000's. Melanie Phillips makes some concise and critical comments in her diary.