I swung by the FCO the other day to have a chat about Bosnia. The snappy desk officer dealing with this problem now is 24 or thereabouts. Let’s say she is 24. She was born in the year I was British Olympic Attache at the Sarajevo Winter Olympic Games. She was […]
Pressing on through Craig Murray’s Murder in Samarkand, we reach Chapter 4 – Diplomacy. Craig has to present his credentials to President Karimov to assume the full rights and responsibilities of HM Ambassador. These credentials traditionally are formal letters in flamboyantly old-fashioned courteous language language from HM The Queen to […]
This story shows what is wrong with ‘EU Foreign Policy’. As previously posted, in dealing with difficult problems a thematic, sustained and firm approach can bring positive results. Especially if it is thematic, sustained and firm. In this case the EU responds reasonably firmly to terrible killings by the Uzbekistan […]
Chapter two of Craig Murray’s book describes his pre-posting briefing rounds. He heads for Eastern Department, effectively his ‘line management’ people. He finds it hard work: The atmosphere in the department seemed to be unpleasant – heavy, pompous and serious. A pall of misery appeared to have settled. I have […]
Round at the Bruges Group last night to hear a thought-provoking Very Big Picture talk. The argument went like this: not too long ago when Communism ended in Europe there were books about the triumph of democracy, the ‘end of history’ and so on now the emphasis is on Islamic […]
My earlier posting on Craig Murray’s telegram to the FCO recording serious human rights abuses in Uzbekistan dismissed the response he won from HQ, namely that the UK would press for an ‘EU demarche’. Why? It sounds grand and important. Not an easy question to answer simply. What is a […]
There are not too many UN Security Council vetoes. So when one comes along it shows that things at that top table are not in good shape – lack of grown-up consensus and/or serious miscalculation by those who pushed the offending Resolution. Although of course there may be cases where […]
This sorry Swedish story attracted fleeting global attention. A school in Sweden confiscated a boy’s party invitations being handed out to his friends as two classmates were not invited: "Two people in class had not been invited, and that is not allowed. The ones who were not invited felt sad […]
A powerful TV programme in Poland has aroused a lot of interest there. Trzech Kumpli ("Three Mates") describes the fates of three men who were students in communist-era Krakow in the 1970s. One became a poet murdered seemingly by the communist police. One under the Kaczynski twins’ leadership became the […]
Daniel Finkelstein in the Times also takes up the charge against John Simpson’s wretched analysis of the latest news from Zimbabwe. And Lord Ashdown argues the case for intervening by force in Zimbabwe to head off a possible genocide. But, comes the shriek, that would violate Zimbabwe’s sovereignty! Recently I was a […]
