Over at Kurir in Serbia a few days they kindly ran an interview with me about current ex-Yugoslav goings-on. Here’s the original (Serbian). And Here’s the full transcript in English as I sent it to them. Note that the opening questions are getting to the assertion that the UK-sponsored UNSC resolution on […]
The Greece referendum is generating all sorts of fascinating writing about Life and Diplomacy. The issues are deliciously complicated. Where to direct most derision? So many fat targets to choose from. Feckless Greek socialists? Mean German technocrats? Clueless top EU bullies? The bloated pretensions of More Europe? Technical blunders in […]
Back again. Here’s my latest Commentator piece, on the Greek referendum: Greece has long been seen as a disaster waiting to happen, and that disaster is now happening. Greece for far too long (a) has spent beyond its means, but worse (b) has not invested borrowed money wisely, and worst […]
While I am away, read this wonderful interview with Camille Paglia. She never fails to challenge = and dance gleefully on her crushed enemies. So many wonderful lines: My clashes with other feminists began immediately. For example, it was 1970 or 1971, there was a feminist conference at the Yale […]
My latest piece at DIPLOMAT has another gallop round some of the issues surrounding Mass and Velocity in diplomacy: The EU’s common foreign policy is particularly prone to piling on Mass but losing Velocity. Lots of European countries intoning the same policies, but struggling to take decisions to implement any […]
I am briefly back from my travels around Europe including to the CTBTO in Vienna and then the UN System Staff College in Turin. Next stop? Back to Warsaw and the Polish Institute of Diplomacy. Anyway, in the past few weeks the students of UK Universities have been grappling with their […]
On Sunday Poland votes in the second round of the 2015 presidential elections, with current president Bronislaw Komorowski fighting to fend off the challenge of a younger Andrzej Duda. My account of the first round is at Poland presidential elections 2015. On Sunday evening I’ll be at the excellent Topolski Bar […]
++ UPDATE ++ Haha never believe opinion polls. According to the exit polls Duda has won the first round (35% or so) with Komorowski failing into second place (32%). Kukiz scored a mighty 20%. A huge battle will ensue for the second round run-off in two weeks’ time… * * […]
Here is my piece over at PunditWire and Commentator describing a draft leaked keynote speech by Vladimir Putin in which he makes a decisive break with Soviet-era iconography and paranoia in favour of basic decency: Traditionally we have taken the Great Patriotic War as starting in June 1941 when Hitler […]
Poor Zoe Williams. So desperate is she to fulfil her production norms at the Guardian that she plumps up the column space with total nonsense about Nostalgia: What is it with bunting, anyway? And The Great British Bake Off, and “vintage”, and Victoria sponge, Kilner jars with home-pickled currants, gingham […]
