My former boss Sir Emyr Jones Parry was put forward to be the new High Representative in Bosnia. But there seems to be a problem. The Russians are unhappy with him, plus the Americans are unhappy with another EU candidate Valentin Inzko from Austria. Poor Bosnia. And Herzegovina. And indeed poor […]
How can the State Department have messed this up? How? No really, how? Hillary Clinton wanted to symbolise a ‘new start’ in US/Russia relations by handing over to Russian Foreign Minister Lvrov a gift of a red button with the Russian word for ‘reset’ on it. Geddit?! They want to reset […]
Some broad-brush thoughts from me on this subject in the latest edition of DIPLOMAT magazine. As far as I can see, neither the FCO nor the fledgling EU foreign service give their people any special training or systematic advice on the Ethics and Morality of Diplomacy – rather a strange […]
According to the Times, the formal recommendation that Senator Kennedy be given an honorary Knighthood came from the British Embassy in Washington. Did the recommendation give the Senator full and glowing credit for (as recorded by the KGB) talking to the Soviet Union to try to thwart President Reagan’s policies? I think we […]
When I was Ambassador in Warsaw and before the FCO embraced blogging with some enthusiasm, I wrote an in-house blog for a couple of weeks. I was limited to 200 words per entry. The FCO kindly have sent me the entries after my Freedom of Information Act request. So, in case anyone […]
I liked Clare Short when I first met her in Bosnia a couple of years later. Her febrile anti-Americanism aside, she was tough-minded, down-to-earth and perspicacious on Bosnian issues. Why did someone as smart as Clare Short get that letter to the Zimbabwe government so wrong? Let’s look at the context. […]
We had the privilege last week of joining a small private dinner in London in honour of Baroness Thatcher. I took the opportunity to congratulate her on her unswerving insistence on Honest Money. See eg this speech in 1984: Today we have the lowest rate of inflation since the 1960s. […]
In Zimbabwe the Africanist tendency led by Robert Mugabe is making one last heave to destroy ‘white farmers’. The so-called power-sharing deal which is meant to start to pull Zimbabwe out of its crisis leaves the Agriculture Ministry in Mugabe’s hands. So, out they go: At the meeting in Chegutu, […]
Warming to my theme on how the West probably has made the Zimbabwe problem worse, I think that Clare Short letter in 1997 to Minister Kumbirai Kangai MP deserves a close look from the point of view of professional civil service technique. So, here goes. George Foulkes has reported to […]
Here is the Independent’s Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on the allegedly awful treatment of Binyam Mohamed, anything which might cast light on his background conveniently omitted: The UN Convention against Torture states: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may […]
