Back in 1998/99 I was one of the first people to point out that Bosnia’s new post-war Constitution as promulgated by the Dayton Accords had a unique feature. The Constitution was unconstitutional! It included obviously discriminatory clauses working against the interests of many citizens who were denied the chance to […]
Over at a newer smarter Business & Politics is my take on the Denis MacShane story: … As the US election saga limps to its end, those of us who favour the victory by Mitt Romney do not find it hard to point to staggering examples of corruption and abuse […]
As a former diplomat turned wannabe speechwriter I have studied closely the latest Conference speech by Labour Party leader Ed Miliband. How to assess it from a technical point of view? And what does it tell us about a possible future Prime Minister’s approach to the great foreign policy issues […]
Over at the FT is a magnificent article by Samuel Brittan that with unerring precision demolishes certain arguments often put forward for why the European Union ‘must’ be supported. I subscribe to the FT online edition so it may be paywalled and unable to be seen by some readers. If so, […]
Last week I had the pleasure of going to Blenheim Palace to watch Poland’s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski deliver a powerful speech about Europe – and the UK’s increasingly unhappy role in it. Here is the full text. Some extracts: While you are an important market for the rest of […]
Hmm. Is the UK going to try to ‘repatriate’ powers from Brussels? And if so, what are the chances of success? It isn’t clear to me why the other EU member states would go along with this, unless we block something horribly important to them (such as the next Budget) […]
An interesting and instructive visit to Riga for this year’s Riga Conference. Thoughts. First, Riga itself. Latvia took an enormous (and partly self-imposed) hit as the Euro zone crisis began, opting for radical austerity measures. Views now differ. Yes, the economy is growing once again at a pretty good rate. […]
This Tweet is so nice and unexpected I think that I need to share it: Stephen Pollard@stephenpollard I must say @CharlesCrawford really is superb. Tweets and blog posts are always really worth reading. Stephen himself is no slouch when it comes to good writing – including resorting as needed to the old trick […]
Great piece on the mess created by the US Embassy in Cairo, Tweeting away in defiance of State Department instructions. FCO social media bunnies: beware what you can unleash. What seems profound, important and even witty on a far-flung computer screen may look glib, inappropriate and utterly irresponsible once the […]
Here is former UK Ambassador Craig Murray being rightly pleased with himself that his blog is right up there among the most influential blogs in the UK at least according to ebuzzing: According to the ebuzzing (formerly wikio) rankings, this is the third most influential political blog in the UK – […]
