Ar a time of such uncertainty, even danger in the planet’s financial system (the oil keeping the global engine running) it is always comforting to hear from the Archbishop of Canterbury as a shining source of Moral Insight and Spiritual Leadership. He invariably shows us the right path to follow. […]
When one is an idle student messing around with studentish things, it is hard to imagine the other idle students as future leaders of vast importance. No, it’s not hard. It’s impossible. My student years had some people who would go on to do remarkable big-scale things. At Oxford University during […]
James Barbour from deep Moscow has tagged me in a new Internet game of One’s Three Inspirational Communicators. The idea originated as (of course) a New Wave PR meme, but is none the worse for that. So at the risk of being earnestly irrelevant as the world’s financial system totters, here goes. What […]
Welcome Instapundit readers. David Miliband puts forward the best available case for why the Kosovo precedent has no bearing on the Georgia case: Some argue that Russia has done nothing not previously done by Nato in Kosovo in 1999. But this comparison does not bear serious examination. Leave to one […]
A lively piece of US-style political analysis: Sure, Hillary’s fat and waddly and screechy and gives pantsuits a bad name. Sure, she’s the kind of gal my dad’s generation knew back in college in the Sixties, the one who wore granny dresses and never shaved her legs and slept with […]
Via Brian Barder, this really good – and meaty – assessment of the current plight of Kosovo by Jeremy Harding. It in fact headlines the Kosovo situation, but really it is about the Limits of Diplomacy – how far can countries on their own or in teams act deliberately (a) […]
A noteworthy sub-plot in the Kosovo situation is a plan by Serbia to ask the UN General Assembly to refer the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an Advisory Opinion. Serbia looks to be getting some handy noises of support for this manoeuvre from eg Russia and India. […]
Here’s something new. A husband-and-wife couple doing a job-share at Ambassador level, for the first time ever, anwhere. Tom Carter and Carolyn Davidson are off to represent HM The Queen as High Commissioner in Zambia, taking it in turns to run the High Commission for four months at a time. […]
The FT attempts to describe how this morass of trade rules complexity has hit the rocks (Note: deliberate mixed metaphor). See also this. When one has worked in Diplomacy for as long as I have, one realises just how little one knows. So on this subject I have primitive instincts/prejudices […]
Nigel Short has a lively use of words, as well as a lively chess style. See the detailed rulings on his use of the word ‘dunderheads’ to describe two senior chess officials. Defamatory or ‘mere vulgar abuse’? Who said that chess is boring?
