Via Samizdata this link to a magnificent address by C S Lewis back in 1944, The Inner Ring (scroll down towards the bottom to find it). This masterpiece is all about the idea that whever you are – school, work, art, politics – there is always an ‘inner ring’ of people […]
Physics-free David Miliband: The idea that the UK can maintain its influence in Beijing or Washington or Delhi or Moscow if we marginalise ourselves in Europe is frankly fanciful. In fact I would say the opposite; through leadership in Europe we augment our bilateral ties with other countries. Alone, we […]
Leaving aside possible criminal charges involving attempts to avoid FOI requests, there are all sorts of legal options in the UK and US alike for people wanting to challenge the way public funds have been invested in academic work on Climate Change which (it seems) fails to meet respectable standards […]
And now, a new UK enquiry into the history of the Iraq intervention. Craig Murray is rude about the Chilcot enquiry team, including my former boss Rod Lyne. I myself find it hard to understand why an official who had a senior job in selling UK policy during this period has […]
President Obama’s sagging ratings are causing many people to wonder what is going on. Mark Steyn of course is no fan of the President bowing to kings and emperors, and calls the President the Superbower: Along with his choreographic gaucherie goes his peculiar belief that all of human history is […]
Here is a trenchant analysis of the tendency of Bosnia to split in two, written by Matthew Parish, a lawyer who has worked in the divided Bosnian city of Brcko and knows what he is talking about. His basic argument is that step by step Republika Srpska is heading towards […]
I previously briefed you on the machinations behind the scramble for EU Top Jobs and the close relationship between Foreign Policy and Physics. The dramatic result? Not very exciting. Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy is chosen as president of the European Council and the UK’s Catherine Ashton becomes the EU High Represenative (aka foreign […]
Look at it like this. In a city there’s a nice large green public park, where families and individuals stroll around happily. One day a group of leather-jacketed aggressive foul-mouthed types and some snarly dogs turn up and postion themselves prominently in one corner. This happens day after day. Gradually […]
Patriarch Pavle (Paul) of the Serbian Orthodox Church died today at the age of 95. A tiny, mild mannered yet complex figure, Patriarch Pavle did his best to identify a principled way forward during the madness of recent decades in Serbia but found himself entangled in the politics of Serbia’s […]
The ever-busy International Crisis Group have written quite a good paper about the current Bosnia and Herzegovina interlocking impasses (so to speak). Here it is. One point of interest. Back at Harvard in 1998 I wrote a long paper about the Dayton Peace Process which posed a challenging question: is […]
