SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war

YOU might have noticed that BBC appears to be undergoing something of a renaissance of occult-themed shows, with Uncanny, Paranormal, Myth Country and, most recently, Hauntings all appearing on our screens in the last year or so.
Certainly it’s a distinct comeback from the events of 32 years ago, when the corporation gave viewers a uniquely spooky experience, after which it seemed for decades similar shows were pre-emptively exorcised by Auntie.
Some would say a shame that after Labour’s election victory, Tory revenants such as director-general Tim Davie, sinister “active agent” (E Maitlis) Robbie Gibb, and on-air fellow-travellers Fiona Bruce and Laura (“Boris Johnson ate my homework”) Kuenssberg weren’t similarly cast out, perhaps to haunt the corridors of equally creepy GB News.
![CS Lewis in 1947 [Pic: Scan of photograph by Arthur Strong]]( https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/low_resolution/public/2025-04/Untitled-1.jpg.webp?itok=RsbHM2ER)
After a ruinous run at Tolkien, the streaming platforms are moving on to Narnia — a naff mix of religious allegory, colonial attitudes, and thinly veiled prejudices that is beyond rescuing, writes STEPHEN ARNELL


