So here I am, whirring away to devise a new one-day module on Diplomatic Crisis Management. Imagine my surprise to see that Buckingham University got there first, with a full module on this very subject: Module outline The nature of Conflicts and Crises Non-Diplomatic Tools of Conflict Resolution: Arbitration; Humanitarian […]
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 […]
Responding to my piece pondering the calamitous performance of Ed Miliband, long-time reader Nigel Sedgwick offers some excellent points on electoral reform in the UK. Posted previously as a comment, but worth looking at properly: Charles writes: “Here in the United Kingdom our “first past the post” voting system produces […]
Remember that fleeting row about the leaked record of conversation between SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and the French Ambassador that amused the UK general election campaign for at least ten minutes? First it wasn’t even a memo at all – it was a fiendish ZINOVIEV MEMO INVENTED BY MI5 aimed at […]
Here is my new piece at PunditWire about the tragic fate of UK Labour Party leader Ed Miliband: One of the best quotes about politics and democracy is attributed to US Senator Russell B Long: Democracy is like a raft. It won’t sink, but your feet are always wet. Here […]
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 […]
If you are in London on Tuesday and sick of the UK general elections, have fun thinking about Poland’s Presidential elections instead. You can watch the Polish Ambassador Witold Sobkow and me in discussion with Liam Halligan on the always interesting subject of Poland’s transition from communism to what it is now. […]
The UK general election takes place soon. In years gone by I used to follow every twist and turn of the elections process. Now? Not so much. Some sort of strange fragmentation is happening, so that our trusty mainly two-party system erodes into something that might well be more ‘democratic’ […]
This one is interesting. Just when we thought that nothing else in the wider Balkan region could astonish us, up pops a brand new country. No, not Kosovo. Not Vojvodina. Not even Eastern Republika Srpska. Liberland! The basic ingenious idea is that, as luck has it, there is a tiny patch […]
It will be especially interesting watching how fans and opponents attempt to ‘frame’ the Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign, and indeed each other. My Indy piece a few weeks ago looked at the dynamics of framing in the UK election context: A classic framing ploy is the Dead Cat Denial. You […]
