My latest DIPLOMAT article on migration and refugees had this dismally prescient passage (emphasis added here): According to the Office of The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in 2014 on average some 40,000 people a day were driven from their homes by conflict or persecution and compelled to find […]
My latest piece for DIPLOMAT magazine, on the EU and its refugee/migrant crisis: Who exactly is a citizen of state X? And what rights (if any) does a person who is not a citizen of state X have (a) to enter state X and (b) to stay there? The answer? […]
Sad news that Lord Howe has died. I had the great honour to serve as FCO speechwriter for him from 1985-87 when he was Foreign Secretary. Of course back then before email and word-processors speechwriting was a ponderous business, with drafts being typed and retyped on hi-tech golfball typewriters by […]
Thanks to the WSJ, we can search the ever-growing database of Hillary Clinton emails. Here is the one from Feb 2011 where news of Tony Blair’s discussion with Gaddafi is described, as the doomed dictator (Gaddafi, not Blair or Hillary) wriggled to survive. If you have a safe place to […]
Here’s the full text of a letter I have sent to The Times on the idea that the Foreign Office budget be slashed by 25% or more. Published today. I don’t yet know how much they used – they’re paywalled! Sir, The values and institutions that have defined world order […]
Remember my piece at DIPLOMAT late last year? Once a state effectively loses control of some parts of its territory to local violent extremists, how long does it take for the mass of citizens to start to challenge state authority, if only because they fear for the results if the state […]
Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn wants to discuss gender apartheid – but only with women, of course: Corbyn said: “Some women have raised with me that a solution to the rise in assault and harassment on public transport could be to introduce women only carriages. “My intention would be to […]
I am pleased to say that work is in hand to produce a new print version of my book Speechwriting for Leaders, now being reworked and improved as Speeches for Leaders. In that book I talk about ‘authenticity’ and Boris Johnson: The British politician Boris Johnson shows how to do […]
My latest piece for Commentator looks at Jeremy Corbyn’s hankering after witchcraft: Collectivist socialism takes it for granted that the fuel of disciplined individual creativity which creates society is like the milk from a cow that can be milked without limit. It assumes witchcraft. When the cow finally keels over, exhausted and […]
UPDATE: More! * * * * * How to explain the fact that Hillary Clinton is still afloat politically? Or not in jail? This is a handy round-up (my emphasis added) of her accelerating woes over her private email server that she used for much of her work (most of […]
