Nearly two decades after leaving office, the former PM is still trumpeting the same futile militarism and failed free market dogmas. The question naturally arises: why does anyone still listen to him, says ANDREW MURRAY
LAST week, in Parliament, I spoke at an event to mark the 12th anniversary of the 2011 uprising, in the presence of some of Bahrain’s most notable and courageous figures in the human rights movement, including Maryam Al-Khawaja, Dr Alaa Alshehabi and Husain Abdulla.
Much of Bahrain’s history has been characterised by remarkable progressive and egalitarian traditions going back a thousand years — a history that has put the people deeply at odds with the authoritarianism they have been forced to live under in recent decades.
And I paid tribute to the guests, as well as to the journalists, academics, prisoners of conscience and others who have fought to extend that legacy despite torture, beatings, imprisonment and repression.
CLAUDIA WEBBE looks at how Britain’s Nato ally has upped the stakes in its effort to silence domestic dissenting voices
JOE ATTARD explains why trade unionists are rallying in solidarity against the recent arrest of political activists in Gilgit-Baltistan, the northernmost region of Kashmir, administered by Pakistan


