Remember my piece almost a year ago describing smart diplomatic options for Doing Something about Libya? Here it is, and none the worse for wear: You draw a noisy stick across the bars of the FCO/State Department cage to rouse the bemused and sulky inmates, and demand ideas for action. What might they […]
Will Hutton’s recent misleading piece in the Guardian about the decline in language learning in UK skills needed some serious demolition. And here it is, by me over at Telegraphs Blogs: … in my experience both at school and later at the late FCO Language Centre, a big part of the […]
Craig Murray and I have a fleeting moment of agreement, rather like ships sailing in opposite directions who pass and exchange friendly waves. He commented on my earlier piece about Libya and MI6, responding to another reader: Your second point rests on the premiss that if government ministers approved something, […]
Long time no write. Somewhere between Writer’s Block and despair at the surging stupidity seen in all directions. Plus nursing my aching ankle and visiting Liechtenstein on a new ADRg Ambassadors training expedition. The roleplays in Liechtenstein included a couple of exercises where chairing a meeting was part of the […]
As you all know, I happen to be a fan of what the Blair government and MI6 did to help bring Gaddafi back towards what passes for the mainstream of civilisation in that part of the world, by helping negotiate the end of his elaborate MWD programmes in return for […]
Here at Commentator are my vivid thoughts on the way The Rules drive out common sense discretion in public services in general, and at Leeds Crown Court in particular: Stop right there, Mr Ambassador! What would happen if the Embassy in Warsaw went out of its way at a senior […]
Here is my latest article at DIPLOMAT magazine on the ever-fascinating question of diplomatic and wider media technique in a confusing new world: Once upon a time diplomats were rarely seen or heard in public. To do their vital work of privately communicating messages between national leaders they needed to […]
One of the things I do on training courses aimed at telling people how to Write with Impact is to cite Shrek. Issues and Shrek are like onions. They have layers. No piece of writing can address all the layers of any problem. The trick is to show awareness of other layers but focus […]
To pass the time and take my mind off my bright blue foot, I have done a couple of quickies for the Telegraph Blog site where there has been a lot of energetic stuff about the EU Summit and all that. Thus yesterday: We awoke this morning to various commentators […]
Back in 1961 the FCO set up a new group of clever diplomats known as the Planning Staff. They were tasked to think up new policy thoughts which might not be welcome, or easy to handle. And earlier this week the FCO hosted a birthday party to mark 50 years […]
