Hurrah. Jay Pollard has been released on parole on strict conditions after a full 30 years in a US prison. In 1986 he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the USA for spying for Israel. He has served his full term, despite the generally close US/Israel relationship and numerous public and […]
Separately on Twitter I have been sparring with Phillip Blond of ResPublica on an interesting issue or two: is ISIS effectively a state for international law purposes, and if so does that make it easier for France to mobilise effective military action under NATO’s famous Article Five? You’ll have to […]
My latest DIPLOMAT article on migration and refugees had this dismally prescient passage (emphasis added here): According to the Office of The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in 2014 on average some 40,000 people a day were driven from their homes by conflict or persecution and compelled to find […]
My latest piece for DIPLOMAT magazine, on the EU and its refugee/migrant crisis: Who exactly is a citizen of state X? And what rights (if any) does a person who is not a citizen of state X have (a) to enter state X and (b) to stay there? The answer? […]
Once again I return to the Foreign Office for the annual ceremony of remembrance for FCO colleagues who have fallen in the line of duty. See this earlier account that tells of some of the names on the list. The name of a locally engaged Afghan employee who worked with […]
Sad news that Lord Howe has died. I had the great honour to serve as FCO speechwriter for him from 1985-87 when he was Foreign Secretary. Of course back then before email and word-processors speechwriting was a ponderous business, with drafts being typed and retyped on hi-tech golfball typewriters by […]
Thanks to the WSJ, we can search the ever-growing database of Hillary Clinton emails. Here is the one from Feb 2011 where news of Tony Blair’s discussion with Gaddafi is described, as the doomed dictator (Gaddafi, not Blair or Hillary) wriggled to survive. If you have a safe place to […]
On Saturday I head back to the USA for this year’s Professional Speechwriters Association conference in Washington DC next week. My task is to lead a session next Wednesday on the following tricky theme: Career: So you want to expand your rhetorical reach? What you must know to write speeches […]
My latest piece for the Telegraph this morning has another look at Syria, and notes with gloomy satisfaction that my thoughts on this subject several years ago have been proven correct: I hate to say that I told you so. But I did. I said it in February 2012: The […]
Here’s the full text of a letter I have sent to The Times on the idea that the Foreign Office budget be slashed by 25% or more. Published today. I don’t yet know how much they used – they’re paywalled! Sir, The values and institutions that have defined world order […]
