Sickened by UK foreign policy, and BBC and media coverage of it

Why does the UK spend so much on defence? Why does it spend it so badly, having spent 40 years wasting billions on contracts that were never completed, for weapons systems bearing little if any relevance to any credible threat to the country? In the midst of a major public expenditure crisis, why is there a consensus between the two main parties on continuing to spend such a huge portion of national income on defence? Why have successive leaders involved the UK in foreign military adventures with so little prior understanding or analysis of what they were getting into, or how hard it would be to get out? How did we find ourselves pursuing a foreign policy and 'war against terror' that seems designed to achieve the opposite result by making us more widely hated and less secure? How did we find ourselves involved in conflicts where the moral case for involvement has been trashed by association with torture, rendition, imprisonment without trial, and hundreds of thousands of civillian deaths? How does Israel succeed in behaving with such inhumanity towards the population of the illegally occupied territories when such vitiol is heaped on other abusers of human rights? I have felt frustrated that these questions are rarely asked in UK discussion outside the pages of the Guardian (especially the splendid Simon Jenkins). This blog will aim to give me a practical alternative to screaming ineffectively at the radio or TV, as yet another rightwing US commentator is interviewed, or an Israeli spokesperson is treated with great respect while the elected representatives of the occupied territories are described as terrorists for resisting an illegal occupation.