One of the great cliches about Cuba is that despite all its human rights and other abuses it sure has a fine free health service which the rest of us should admire. Really? One of the ways in which any good health service keeps effective surely must be ready access to […]
As the results come in it is clear that Vladimir Zhirinovsky has failed yet again to become Russian President. He surged to prominence and even some significance in 1993 when his Liberal-Democratic Party won some 23% of the popular vote in the Duma elections. Before these important elections the […]
Nazism or Communism? Which was ‘worse’? And why? I sent the FCO some thoughts on this subject when I was HM Ambassador in Warsaw. I pointed out that today’s Europe would look and feel rather different if Hitler was lying embalmed in Berlin just as Lenin lies creepily in Moscow. […]
Once upon a time supporting human rights included defending free speech, even if it was speech one did not much like or welcome. This also included presenting moderation and self-restraint as ends in themselves. Promoting the profound and difficult idea that rational, reasonable, constructive, positive ends would not be achieved by irrational, unreasonable, destructive, negative means. […]
How to assess the life and works of Fidel Castro? CNN has the line. Castro was a not too bad fellow who did good things for ‘social reform’ in Cuba and who was praised in some circles for standing up to the United States. Oh, and he was criticized for […]
Boris Tadic has won Serbia’s Presidential elections, defeating the populist Radical Tomislav Nikolic by a close but clear margin on a high turn-out. Nikolic has conceded defeat in a dignified way. Tadic is making suitably polite noises about his opponent and his supporters. This is a powerful vote by Serbia […]
A fine article in Wired describes the huge job now under way to piece together millions of shreds of documents which the Stasi secret police feverishly ripped up as East Germany’s peculiarly grubby and vicious form of Communism abruptly ended. Of course in the few hours they had available the Stasi would have […]
Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I think that appearances matter. When one walks into a shop or office or home, what is the first impression? Smart, tidy, clean premises? People looking intelligent and interested to see you? A sense of good order? The grand former Federation Palace building in New Belgrade […]
Having spent most of my working life in or dealing with societies suffering from the consequences of communism, I have tried to work out what it is communists really believe(d) in. Communists’ immediate policy goals are clear enough. To run and above all control everything on exclusively their own terms with […]
The Russian government’s disagreement with London over the British Council and its status intensifies. Points worth bearing in mind include: most if not all governments including the Russians ‘sell’ (or at least levy an administrative charge for) certain things through their Embassies abroad as part of normal diplomatic business (see eg […]
