Thoughtland

PK column in The National: In the name of the truths we live by, society needs the likes of Assange

By Pat Kane. First published on APRIL 13TH, 2019

SO it comes to this. Julian Assange, the charismatic info-thorn in the side of secretive regimes, is dragged out squirming and shouting from his London sanctuary, looking like a middle-aged hippie squatter gone to seed.

We might apply the kind of media scepticism to this footage that the age of WikiLeaks has generally encouraged. Who captured it and distributed it? In whose interest is it for us to see the great revealer of the war crimes of imperial states, bundled out into the streets like a bearded crazy?

PK column in The National: Wikileaks is providing post-indy food for thought

By Pat Kane. First published on MARCH 11TH, 2017

IT’S like a reject script fished from the bins of the Sherlock writing room. Inside an elegant building in Knightsbridge, London, under the protection of a Latin American embassy, lurks one of the most destabilising men in the world. His hair and beard are white; his pallor keeps pace. His revelations topple governments and explode conspiracies. And as he opens his boxes of digital secrets, he is visited in his diplomatic lair by an entirely random set of A to C-list celebs.