Mehdi Hasan

In his column today, the Guardian's Gary Younge writes that "withdrawing the troops [from Iraq] is about the only truly popular thing Obama has done in the last two years. Polls show more than 70% support withdrawal, roughly two-thirds oppose the war, and more than half believe it was a mistake".

So it is sad and frustrating to witness Barack Obama, who opposed the Iraq invasion ... read more

"What is the point of the Lib Dems?" ask politicians, journalists, Lib Dem activists, Labour activists, students, taxi drivers and anyone else who has ever expressed a view on - or even a passing interest in! - British politics.

Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander have been touring the broadcasting studios trying to defend the Lib Dems' position (well, what position? They u-turned - again! - between Friday and Sunday) on Cameron's ... read more

Last night I was a panellist on BBC1's Question Time, in Stoke-on-Trent. You can watch it, via the iPlayer, here.

It was my fourth appearance on the BBC's flagship news-and-current-affairs debate show and it is always an amusing experience to be one of the five panellists. I must say that I was quite impressed with the Tory peer and Next boss, read more

The easiest and quickest way to expose the hypocrisy of our government's, and the wider western world's, professed support for democracy and freedom in the Arab world is to say just two words: Saudi Arabia.

From the BBC website today:

Amnesty International has accused Saudi Arabia of reacting to the Arab Spring by launching a wave of repression.

In a report, the human ... read more

As I watched the Chancellor deliver his Autumn Statement to MPs yesterday, I couldn't help but remember his 2010 conference speech in Birmingham and, in particular, this bit of the speech:

Imagine, if I were to stand up in the House of Commons in two weeks time and say: I'm cancelling the deficit plan.

I agree with Ed Miliband.

Let's delay the tough decisions.

Let's borrow more.

Let's go on ... read more

Imagine my surprise to discover that Toby Young had not just bought and read my 10,000-word ebook, The Debt Delusion, as he'd promised to on Twitter, but penned a 3,000-word response on the Telegraph website, entitled "New Statesman's political editor is wrong about the debt crisis" (note: I'm not, technically, the NS's "political editor".)

Young's attempt to debunk my arguments, as ... read more

Remember Barack Obama's speech on 1 December 2009, in which he announced his troop surge for Afghanistan? The US president was mocked and derided by neoconservatives for failing to use the word "victory" even once.

In an interview in today's Times (£), General Sir David Richards, the Chief of the UK's Defence Staff, has no such reservations. He doesn't use the ... read more

I spent much of the weekend in various Twitterspats with pundits (professional and self-appointed) and a Labour member of Parliament too. The issue? Iran. Yep, a mere mention of the word sends normally sane and rational (dare I use this word anymore?) people, on the left and the right, into spasms of hysteria.

I wrote a column for Friday's Guardian, entitled (read more

The Chancellor George Osborne will have been delighted to pick up the Financial Times this morning. As the Eurozone implodes, the FT's splash was headlined:

Gilt yields fall as UK becomes safe haven

"Safe haven" is a line that the Chancellor and his supporters in the right-wing press have been spinning for several months now, arguing that the fall in UK government borrowing costs - gilt yields ... read more

There was a time when I had a lot of admiration for the work of the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its Nobel-prize-winning chief, Mohammed ElBaradei, stood up to the Bush administration over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the 2003 invasion in 2003 - and was vindicated by the subsequent, post-war ... read more

Ed Miliband speaking at his weekly press conference in October Source: Getty Images

PMQs was a disappointment. Few jokes, even fewer good lines - and no "gotcha" questions from Ed Miliband. Bizarrely, the Labour leader decided to devote all his six bites of the cherry to the ongoing border control row - despite the fact that, at the time of writing, Yvette Cooper has ... read more

I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next man (did man really land on the moon? I mean, really?) but I'm sorry to have to tell you that Dan Hodges wasn't "axed", "pushed" or "forced out" from the New Statesman. By me -- or anyone else.I'm repeatedly asked if I ... read more