Nick Clegg, Deputy PM, stood at the disptach box yesterday for Prime Minister's Questions and called the Iraq War "illegal" - something I have been writing (and saying in print) since 2003. This is an odd moment. Yesterday the ex-head of MI5 said much the same thing. It appears that the cracks in the Establishment are showing. However, Clegg has backtracked - since most Tories supported the war, and Cameron - he can hardly do otherwise and remain in government. Still, it was a glorious slip of the tongue. Will time tell the truth? Will Tony Blair ever face the justice meted out to Saddam?
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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