Over in the USA the Republicans – boosted by Tea Party energy – look set to win big tomorrow in the latest rounds of US elections. Pundits pore away over why President Obama’s erstwhile omnipotent appeal has waned. Is he too aloof, too clever, too Left, too moderate? Has he […]
More confused or at least confusing analysis of the EU Budget in the Daily Telegraph: The Prime Minister last week promised to fight plans to increase the European Commission’s budget by 5.9 per cent and said its 2011 budget should be frozen or cut. Last night, however, British sources conceded […]
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague is in Moscow. Some thoughts. One of my earliest blog postings from back in 2008 described some of the issues arising from the Russian authorities’ beastly treatment of the British Council. It recorded something said to me by a senior Russian diplomat in 1996 […]
Are North Korea’s leader, Jack Straw, Neil Kinnock and Fidel Castro by some chance related? Of course. Why? Because they are all part of socalist political family hierarchies, featuring a successful father whose fame and power and influence help propel their relatives to new glory. We all know about Kim […]
Anne Perkins at the Guardian muses on the fact that new Labour Party leader Ed Miliband’s private life is no longer so private: Hardly had the world learned the non-secret information that Ed Miliband’s partner, the barrister Justine Thornton, was not also his wife, than a trawl through the birth […]
According to Iain Dale, the ‘right-wing’ blogosphere needs new blood: Left-of-centre blogs take up four of the top 10 places and seven of the top 20. Last year there was only one left-wing blog (Tom Harris) in the top 10 and four in the top 20. So does this indicate […]
The Independent today runs the story of deaf diplomat Jane Cordell’s claim that the FCO unlawfully discriminated against her in refusing to post her to Astana (Kazakhstan) as the cost of the ‘reasonable adjustments’ needed to allow her to work there would not (said the FCO) have been reasonable. And […]
Remember the EU’s financial crisis which threatened to bring down the Eurozone a few months ago? No. Anyway, according to Baseline Scenario it is still waiting to pounce, this time on Ireland which is often held up as the right way to deal with Eurozone member states’ debt problems: The […]
This morning I appeared on LBC‘s Nick Ferrari Breakfast radio programme. I was invited to join Mehdi Hasan (New Statesman) to talk about the forthcoming visit to the UK of Pakistan’s President Zardari. Mehdi led off, unexpectedly (for me!) praising David Cameron for speaking out about the fact that elements in Pakistan […]
My piece analysing David Cameron’s high-profile speeches in Turkey and India has attracted some attention, and various well-taken comments. Part of the problem for a speechwriter for a top politician is to work out who the audience is, and craft the words accordingly. Most speeches of any consequence by (say) […]
