I have been away at Crawf Major’s University graduation ceremony and generally wilting in the heat of the sun and the England cricket attack. Some space for some writing now reappears, including a nice opportunity to write something for Scotland’s Sunday Post about Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream […]
Every now and again an article comes along that assembles all one’s own inchoate half-thoughts into a free-flowing stupendous whole. This time Charles Moore delivers on the plight of wretched US über-leaker Edward Snowden: Acting in the name of a morality which disdains allegiance to the rule of national law, […]
Long time no blog. I am in Warsaw to give masterclasses in Negotiation Skills to Polish officials. I have just spent the best part of an hour dictating into the computer someone fascinating observations on the latest revelations about Western electronic eavesdropping and the renewed political unrest in Egypt. All […]
You’re wondering what I have been up to in May. I have been rushing around like a whirling dervish. Thus: • a presentation on Difficult Conversations to the senior management of a distinguished school • a talk at my old school on Lessons for Life • fielding a group of […]
My latest piece at Punditwire, where I note with horror that the Milibandistic dry rot of filling speeches with meaningless – but also intellectually shifty – musty/needs exhortations has spread all the way across the Atlantic to President Obama’s speechwriters: … his [Obama’s] recent well received speech in Israel, where […]
Here is an interesting (but not altogether clear) piece about Cyprus and ‘national insolvency’ by Stephen Kinsella at Harvard Business Review: … national borrowing on the modern scale really only began around the seventeenth century. Before that in the monarchical era, so-called “court bankers” provided cash-strapped sovereigns with loans and […]
Back from sharing with the Croatian Diplomatic Academy some training thoughts on Lobbying and Negotiating in the European Union. With the Cyprus drama helpfully unfolding before our startled eyes. These fiendishly complex financial/banking negotiations are impossible for normal people to follow, although anyone following my Twitter feed will have seen […]
I am pleased and honoured to tell you that I have been accepted as part of the Punditwire team. Punditwire is a US website featuring the views of many top American speechwriters on current events.The list of contributors is daunting. A group of fine people from many different shades of […]
Here’s my Telegraph Blogs piece this morning on the news coming from Brussels that mirabile dictu the EU Budget may in fact not grow over the coming seven year financial cycle: The French have made the usual belligerent noises, feigning to champion increased spending that they too can’t afford. As […]
Does it matter if you have a limited vocabulary? Yes it does, according to this magnificent piece by E D Hirsch Jr: Why should vocabulary size be related to achieved intelligence and real-world competence? Though the intricate details of cognitive abilities are under constant study and refinement, it’s possible to […]
