Background on the fascinating saga of my leaked email back in 2005 which was splashed over the front page of the Sunday Times. What do EU Budget negotiations and Clint Eastwood have in common? Lots. Once upon a time the EU decided that it needed a new Treaty to move […]
More hitherto uncollated rock ‘n’ roll echoes from the arcane world of diplomacy. By which I mean some sort of reference to actual diplomatic practice, not a passing word such as in Cheap Trick’s "I Love you Honey but I Hate your Friends": That limp wristed two-fisted diplomat Better draw a […]
Hillary makes a strong come-back, winning the Democratic nomination contests in Texas and Ohio. Can she now push to vistory and win the nomination? And then become President? Will she and Gordon Brown then be assassinated? On the day another tsunami hits Asia? Don’t bet on it. Or maybe you […]
British MPs take an important vote today on the Treaty on European Union. A fine British Parliamentary moment looms. The Conservative Party are calling for a referendum. The Labour Party say that one is not necessary. The LibDems are being ordered not to vote, or something. From the classic UK […]
Now and again one comes across an utterly awesome YouTube item which transcends all known categories of excellence and human interest. Such as this.
As the results come in it is clear that Vladimir Zhirinovsky has failed yet again to become Russian President. He surged to prominence and even some significance in 1993 when his Liberal-Democratic Party won some 23% of the popular vote in the Duma elections. Before these important elections the […]
Russia chooses a new President tomorrow, 2 March. Without OSCE observers. When did Russia’s leadership start to tip away from seeing European Democracy as the Solution, towards seeing it as a Problem? Maybe around 6 May 1996. In the UK it was a Bank Holiday Monday morning; we expected a normal working […]
A controversy over David Cameron’s supposed views on a British Government-supported programme to take sixth form pupils to Poland to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp complex has drawn attention to that programme which has been ticking over already in different forms for some nine years. This programme is a Good Thing, even if the […]
As well as obviously political or protest songs put out down the years, there are plenty which draw in an explicit or implicit way rather on the language and practice of diplomacy. And the time has come for a former senior diplomatic practitioner (ie me) to draw the planet’s attention to […]
The time is coming when the full story of my leaked email about the EU Budget and a Chinese alarm-clock will have to be told. For now just to say that the story frisked round the Internet for a short while. I alas was not famous for even fifteen minutes. More like two […]
