Here we are, back from Turkey after the Mother of All Horrible Flights thanks to Thomson Airways, which diligently contrived an 18-hour information-free delay. Details to be written up when I have the strength. For now have a look at my latest DIPLOMAT piece on Diplomatic Technique. It helpfully includes the answers […]
The Commentator has published a piece of mine – Torture versus terror – a tale of two resignations – which is intended to bring out in 100% unambiguous terms what practical and ethical/policy dilemmas a blanket extension of the idea of ‘complicity in torture’ might produce. It takes a dramatic imaginary scene some years […]
Here is Craig Murray rumbling on about the fact that News International recently held a reception in the FCO: Last week the Murdoch phone hacking empire hired the palatial rooms of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for their summer party. There Rebekah Brooks and Murdoch junior sumptuously entertained their bought […]
Remember the Bonn Powers for Bosnia and Herzegovina – the supposed authority bestowed on the High Representative by the ‘international community’ to allow him/her to remove recalcitrant Bosnians from office or otherwise ‘move forward’ the ‘peace process’? The impressive thing was that as far as I could see the Bonn Powers […]
Fascinating and important piece by FT’s Clive Crook on the deep moral assumptions underpinning the USA’s latest public spending dramas: Prof Haidt finds that liberals are driven mainly by intuitions about fairness (who gets what) and harm to victims. Conservatives are guided by those intuitions too, but also by intuitions […]
Nosemonkey praises the energetic start of the Polish Presidency, not least a feisty speech by Polish PM Donald Tusk. The text of this important speech is not (as far as I can see) on the Polish Prime Minister’s official website, even in Polish. So we have to do with some […]
Poland now assumes the six-month Polish Presidency for the first time. Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski sets the scene: “EU success story” gets some 600 Google News hits. “EU crisis” gets 14,000 hits. What has gone wrong? Some people have a blunt answer: “Too much Europe!” EU structures and policies are […]
As Poland starts its EU Presidency, the long-awaited announcement is made: HM Ambassador in Poland Ric Todd is moving on, to a significant and sunny new posting. All is not (yet) quite lost. Lots of scope for transplanting modern progressive European values to the conservative locals – and flying that flag. […]
Busy anti-circumcision Left ‘activists’ UK Uncut last night tried to protest against Bono at Glastonbury! An event replete with (in?) delicious post-modern irony. The more so when U2 ‘security guards’ pounded in to seize and destroy the pretty protest balloon. Leftists! Defend private property! Readers recall my one and only encounter […]
You all know where these came from: Art never expresses anything but itself All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art […]
