Opinion / Asia

Those Russian Elections

Here’s an astute point I heard at a top FCO meeting recently:”The world of states and the world of people are diverging…”Neatly put, and profoundly true. See also the Eurozone, passim.How does that apply to Russia? Russia is the sprawling space on earth which took to the highest, maddest level […]

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Promoting Speechwriting Skills – When to Take Credit?

Talking of speeches, the problem with being a speechwriter is simple. The better you are, the less anyone should know. Why? Because if you help write a speech for someone and it goes down well, that someone is likely to want to claim all the credit for the fine words […]

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Why Kosovo Still Matters

Former FCO Minister Denis MacShane MP has written a small but energetic book praising Kosovo’s independence: Why Kosovo Still Matters (sic). Here it is, a perfect Christmas stocking-filler, the more perfect if bought via this link so that I get a few groats from Amazon:  The main interest of the book for […]

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FCO: Locarno Group Launched

The first meeting of the Foreign Secretary’s new Locarno Group ("senior FCO alumni, selected for their breadth of experience and expertise") took place today. The aim, part of an energetic and even impressive series of moves led by William Hague to transform the FCO’s performance at many new levels, is not […]

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Climate Change Corruption: Proof!

We mere taxpayers suspect in our dark hearts that a formidable industry has grown up around the ‘climate change’ issue, with all sorts of organisations big and small depending on state handouts to survive, and so frothing up the climate issue regardless of the facts to make sure that those handouts […]

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Mr Gaddafi? Meet RoboGeisha

Who’s not seen Japanese mayhem movie classic RoboGeisha?   It’s all about young ladies who get captured by a wicked arms corporation which turns itself into a giant robot and tries to drop an H-bomb down Mt Fuji to make the Japanese people ‘rise up’. Quite why they would rise […]

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Da da daaaa – Vienna (and Montenegro)

Sorry that there hasn’t been much blogging here recently. A sudden surge of work and a certain vivid domestic drama – about which I may write in due course (but don’t bank on it) – have been overwhelming me this week.   Anyway, here I am marooned in Vienna Airport […]

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BBC Collectivism

I have written here before about the way the BBC defaults towards glossing over collectivist crimes and damning with faint praise the success of market-based solutions. Or slips in other strange invariably Lefty assumptions via sly editing. A handy compilation of a few horrors: –   Sneaky use of inverted comma qualification to […]

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Palestine at the UN

I write little here about Israel/Palestine as I have little to say which countless others are not saying. Plus I don’t have first-hand professional experience. What is going on? Of course the Palestinians want to advance their claims and demands on all international fronts. Upping their status at the UN […]

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9/11 Remembered: Muslim v Muslim

I returned to the Embassy in Belgrade to be told to watch on TV what was happening in New York. I did. The Twin Towers crashed. My thought then is still valid: This level of Islamist madness is quite different. It can’t be defeated by normal means. Only moderate Muslims […]

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