Take the piece by Kishore Mahbubani on the Guardian’s site today: "The Sermons of Cowards". Into the sausage machine are thrown the usual ingredients. Guantanamo, "the gulag of our times"; the USA’s Patriot Act ("In the face of threats from terrorism, the population has, in effect, accepted a reduction of […]
What of Liberal Fascism in practice? The picture as seen from Europe is depressing, and getting worse. In the USA the range of ideas, choices and voices heard is far wider than here. When some new policy is proposed in the USA it is likely to meet a […]
British MPs take an important vote today on the Treaty on European Union. A fine British Parliamentary moment looms. The Conservative Party are calling for a referendum. The Labour Party say that one is not necessary. The LibDems are being ordered not to vote, or something. From the classic UK […]
As the results come in it is clear that Vladimir Zhirinovsky has failed yet again to become Russian President. He surged to prominence and even some significance in 1993 when his Liberal-Democratic Party won some 23% of the popular vote in the Duma elections. Before these important elections the […]
A controversy over David Cameron’s supposed views on a British Government-supported programme to take sixth form pupils to Poland to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp complex has drawn attention to that programme which has been ticking over already in different forms for some nine years. This programme is a Good Thing, even if the […]
When I was Ambassador in Warsaw people often would ask me, "how many Poles are now in the UK?" Interesting question. Who is a Pole? And what does "in the UK" mean? Crudely speaking there are different categories of Poles now living in the UK. Thus: a small number of […]
The blog of Foreign Secretary David Miliband on the FCO website is an interesting attempt to make Ministers and the foreign policy process more accessible to the public. The tricky thing with such initiatives aimed at reflecting what busy senior people think is that busy people are busy. So keeping a blog […]
The Guardian this morning has a piece on the chilly state of what it calls ‘Anglo-Russian’ relations. The ‘Anglo’ word rings strange in this context these days. It appears to make England the focus of such problems while having nothing to say about the surely similar and weighty responsibilities of Scotland, Wales and […]
Once upon a time the FCO did not have its ‘24/7 Response Centre’. It had a Resident Clerk. Not a single person, but a group of London-based diplomats at First Secretary level who took it in turns to work once a week at night, perched in a room awash in faded glory high […]
