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 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 […]
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 […]
My previous piece about Poland and its new Law and Justice (PiS) government’s manoeuvres has attracted a lot of attention in Poland – see the vivid stream of comments from all sides of the arguments and more. This morning it has been announced that the European Commission has decided to […]
Around the planet the world’s networked seismographs will have revealed in seconds all sorts of things about North Korea’s latest big bomb test, hydrogen or otherwise. Notably that it was indeed a bomb (and not an earthquake) and where exactly the test took place. Other instruments will be tracing the […]
“I glance over your web-site every now and again, and usually find something to enjoy and even by which to be impressed.” So writes a long-lost pal from college, taking grammar to its limits to avoid finishing a sentence with a preposition. Not that there’s been much to see here […]
Here’s my latest piece for DIPLOMAT. On the always fascinating subject of diplomatic entertaining: It’s easy to be a diplomatic guest. Just be polite. Show up when you’ve undertaken to do so, dressed appropriately. Then do not get drunk or behave disgracefully. If the event is something special (i.e. not […]
My latest piece for the Telegraph on the shooting down by Turkey of a Russian bomber. A belligerent set of comments, mostly feuding with each other to no helpful purpose and having nothing to do with my piece if anyone actually read it. Russia ‘of course’ will respond. But it’s […]
