The Hillary Clinton Ship of Destiny sails on, despite gaping Emailgate holes appearing above and below the waterline. Back in August last year I wrote about her already ghastly email problems: So for me the very fact that Hillary Clinton set up a parallel substantive private email arrangement for much […]
Remember my football negotiation thoughts on the sundry attempts by Tottenham Hotspur FC to buy Saido Berahino last year? That possibility rumbles on in the 2016 UK winter ‘transfer window’, a month when clubs can buy or sell players mid-season to try to improve their chances in the coming race […]
Last week I took part in a debate at The Arts Club in London on the foreign policy of President Obama. I was joined by Toby Young opposing the motion proposed by former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the BBC’s Mark Mardell that Obama’s foreign policy has been a success. Julia Hartley-Brewer […]
Here is a bizarre article by one Sławomir Sierakowski over at Project Syndicate, who ought to know better. It gets off to a flying start with the title: The Polish Threat to Europe. Not, you note, A Polish Threat to Europe or even A Polish Threat to Europe? No, it’s the definite […]
It’s only reasonable that you get a sense of what’s to be found in my new book on leadership and public speaking, Speeches for Leaders. So try these ten soundbites: On practising a speech in advance Would orating mightily to oneself in front of the bathroom mirror really help? On […]
Here it is. The hardback version of my book on leadership and public speaking. Speeches for Leaders. As with the earlier ebook edition, this has been published by Diplomatic Courier in Washington, one of the world’s best magazines for diplomats and diplomacy. As a result the book is available via […]
Here’s my piece today for the Daily Telegraph on the mighty Owen Report on the murder by polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. With added Katyn: For anyone interested in the way governments operate, there is nothing more astonishing than the policy memorandum sent from Beria to Stalin in 1940, tersely […]
Here for MLK Day 2016 is my new piece for Diplomatic Courier, looking at a less well-known speech by Martin Luther King back in 1957 He deftly juxtaposes extreme optimism with extreme pessimism: The extreme optimist and the extreme pessimist have at least one thing in common: they both agree that […]
My previous post linked to the new gloomy piece by Robert Kaplan for the WSJ, in which he ponders the possibility of Europe reverting to deep historical fault-lines: The sturdy core of modern Europe approximates in large measure the Carolingian Empire founded by Charlemagne in the ninth century. The first […]
Dr Lee Rotherham of the Taxpayers Alliance has written a lively paper about the practical options for the UK should it leave the UK, with the underlying theme of calibrating the ‘national interest’. It gets a bit complicated here and there: The arithmetic is set out below. f1+f2+f3 s1 w […]
