Close your eyes and try to imagine what Germany, Japan and China will look like 30 years from now, that is, when a newly-issued long-term bond will mature… … Imagination fails in the case of Europe and Japan. One out of every four Germans today is older than 60, and […]
The latest Stonewall Workplace Equality Index has been published. The FCO is delighted with its rating (53rd place, above the Ministry of Justice but below HM Revenue and Customs): Commenting on the achievement Sir Mark Lyall Grant, FCO Board Diversity Champion for Sexual Orientation, said: “I am delighted that the […]
My new observations on this ever-fascinating subject are in the latest Total Politics (free registration needed for the E-zine). See eg: Yeltsin’s Moscow before that (1993-96) was fascinating in big policy terms, but a grinding, debilitating place to live in. In late August the air abruptly went chilly as the Russian […]
Here is Archbishop Desmond Tutu boldly advising President Obama in an article written for the BBC: In the first days after 9/11, the United States had the world’s sympathy, an unprecedented wave of it. President Bush squandered it. Obama too could easily squander the goodwill that his election generated if […]
Why does the EU work as it does? One Massive Point about the EU which tends to get lost is that it is all about the biggest member states giving exaggerated and unceasing reassurance to the smaller ones. This explains why the voting weights as per the current Nice Treaty […]
David Miliband’s protocol problems in India (the risk or otherwise of annoying senior Indian interlocutors by being too ‘familiar’) raise an interesting operational point. What is the role of the in-country Ambassador in such circumstances? In particular, how far should he/she go to brief the visiting Minister on how to […]
You are a Prime Minister. You throw overboard your Defence Secretary in a Cabinet reshuffle. But you feel you owe him. And it’s always better to keep ex-Ministers ostensibly busy, lest they start to chaff at their obviously ‘ex-‘ status and cause trouble in the Party. Maybe push him for the top […]
Blush prettily as I do to link to it, here is the Independent: Despite reading it closely, I’m still not convinced of how on earth Charles Crawford is allowed to blog as he does. Which recalls this memorable exchange, when sardonic architecture student Howard Roark is being expelled for insisting […]
Another opportunity for FCO bloggers to write a lively Op-ed: A high-ranking diplomat at the Foreign Office has been arrested after allegations that he launched a foul-mouthed anti-Semitic tirade. Middle East expert Rowan Laxton, 47, was watching TV reports of the Israeli attack on Gaza as he used an exercise […]
My article about Building Embassies from Scratch is in the latest DIPLOMAT magazine: New embassies do represent an unusual challenge. Cynical Treasury officials like wartime embassies (cheap) or even no embassies (free). Don’t modern communications allow all this old-fashioned representational work to be done from and between capitals? No. The […]
