From the outside the cadre of serving British Ambassadors presents a forbidding spectacle, a phalanx of Erudite Excellencies. Once upon a time these senior officials would serve until they reached full retirement age unless they had served in unhealthy malaria-stricken postings earlier in their careers, in which case they were […]
A tough question I have put to various candidates for jobs involving protocol instinct and practice: You are supervising the seating of VIPs at the theatre for a big British theatre night. As guests arrive you are told that two top VIPs allocated to the best central front-row seats are […]
Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I think that appearances matter. When one walks into a shop or office or home, what is the first impression? Smart, tidy, clean premises? People looking intelligent and interested to see you? A sense of good order? The grand former Federation Palace building in New Belgrade […]
Back in 1984/85 I was on the FCO’s Aviation Desk for a year, working mainly on Transatlantic air services issues (who could fly when and where and for how much), and in particular on the diplomatic ramifications of Freddie Laker’s antitrust lawsuit against British Airways and other carriers. The core […]
Back in the 1980s many in the FCO still recalled the days when a woman had to resign from the service on marriage – a fact which of course left only a tiny number of senior FCO women at the top of the British diplomatic world 20 years later. That […]
My blog entry about allegedly Feckless Poles described how a small slip by an official interpreter caused some unwanted and unexpected headlines. Yet that at least was a slip. Back in Bosnia in the mid-1990s the interpreters of President Izetbegovic had a much more ambitious streak. After Bosnia’s first post-conflict elections […]
The success of Tomislav Nikolic in the Serbia Presidential elections first round vote ahead of current President Boris Tadic is no surprise. Points worth bearing in mind: Serbia is not that big a place (some 10 million people including the Kosovo population). Some four million people voted. Nikolic came in […]
In March 2007 it was drawn to my attention that the authors of a new book The Albanian Question – Reshaping the Balkans had said some most disobliging things about … me! Thus I had been described as “ … a fanatical Yugophile, who had been a member of […]
The Guardian this morning has a piece on the chilly state of what it calls ‘Anglo-Russian’ relations. The ‘Anglo’ word rings strange in this context these days. It appears to make England the focus of such problems while having nothing to say about the surely similar and weighty responsibilities of Scotland, Wales and […]
There are three problems in Diplomacy. What you think about a problem. What you should do about it. And what you can do about it. So what the British Government think about the continuing Russian official pressure on the British Council is clear enough. But some commentators are saying that […]
