Today I listened to a good BBC Radio Five discussion on the vexed issue of MEPs allowances/salaries, possible abuses thereof (see eg Guido). A commendable airing of some basic facts, plus sensible discussion between various experts/pundits and two MEPs. The subject ended up with a ‘what if’ exchange on the […]
James Rogers’ website Global Power Europe is an elegant and eloquent example of the far opposite of British Euro-Scepticism – Euro-Uberzeal. If it’s European, he wants More. Much More. In his latest entry James urges Ireland to vote Yes to the Treaty, lest Europeans turn into minnows. He cites IMF statistics […]
Controversy rages (zzzzz) over plans (or not) for the EU to have its own Embassies within the new External Action Service. As previously described, this proposal of course is being hotly debated in Brussels, not least because hundreds of EU officials’ jobs as currently funded are at stake. This latest […]
Sooner or later we may need to ‘think the unthinkable’ and talk to Al Qaida, according to senior UK police officer Sir Hugh Orde, who cites the IRA precedent. Meanwhile Al Qaida is said to be in retreat, according to the head of the CIA: But now, Mr Hayden said, […]
My Blogoir entry on the latest Serbian elections has been run by B92, a leading ‘pro-European’ media outlet in Belgrade. And the comments flow. Mainly negative, which is fair enough. How many Serbs want to hear the views of a former British Ambassador? See eg this one from John Bosnitch who (if it is […]
Plodding round the garden trying to cut the grass, I kept thinking about the momentous words of John Bosnitch! He dismissed me summarily on B92’s site as an "ex-ambassador trying to complete England’s never-ending mission of subduing Serbia as part of its global policy against Russia". Huh? What does JB think […]
Samizdat via Brian Micklethwait wonders what convulsive forces might collide with the UK’s currently volatile political scene: Perhaps the EU will actually inform Britain, publicly, clearly, that it now rules it, and that merely British elections really do indeed now count for absolutely nothing, and maybe the British people will […]
I return to Poland this week, my first visit back since driving across the border into Germany at the end of September last year. To help prevent Ambassadors from setting themselves up plumply in the country of their final posting, the UK Civil Service has a rule to the effect that former […]
Arncha sick of all those articles about ‘fat cats’ in the City and elsewhere, proclaimed to be ripping us off right and left? The Daily Mail has them. The Independent urges revolt against them. A soon-to-be disgraced former Minister says that they should be ‘made’ to hand over their money. […]
As Titanic-Mugabe steams urgently towards the rocks one asks oneself: what is really going on here? The key ‘deep’ point to remember in all this is that Zimbabwe leader Mugabe is not (like South Africa President Thabo Mbeki) a Communist, but rather an Africanist. The European Communist tradition stressing class struggle as […]
