Returning to the history of those 2005 EU Budget negotiations. It was clear from the outset to anyone in the know (a) that there would be an increased EU budget, and (b) that those who Give and not those who Get would determine just how much bigger. Since […]
I am baffled. When I was civil servant I had to account scrupulously for the best part of 28 years for every penny of public money I spent and was responsible for. And I did. My record was spotless. In fact, when I took up the post of Ambassador in Warsaw I […]
Greetings, readers from EU Referendum, who have seen the interesting comment there by Helen (I assume Szamuely) on one of my earlier entries about different national negotiating styles. Helen calls me on whether the Russian approach to negotiating in fact works, giving some examples where the picture at best is mixed. […]
As Zimbabwe’s weekly/daily/hourly/minutely inflation rate soars into unimaginable numbers which portend possible mass starvation, normal people may be wondering how that exotic phenomenon actually works in practice. Where do all those pretty new banknotes for a bazillion Zimbabwean dollars each in fact come from? From Europe, of course!
My observations on Power and Purpose attracted this interesting thought from someone in the Mini containing my ever-growing army of readers, himself once closely involved in British government sharp-end business: It always struck me that the FCO was truly excellent when faced with a bad situation. They could be relied […]
Mugabe is worse than the white supremacist leader, Ian Smith, who he overthrew. He has murdered more black Africans than the apartheid villains Hendrik Verwoerd, John Forster and P W Botha. Reading this I come away with a clear view that Peter Tatchell disapproves of Presidents Mugabe and Mbeki. Is […]
The British Government’s approach on the BAE/Saudi corruption problem (see below) in a deeper way is all about how a country pursues its interests. Part of getting what you want is projecting a sense of Power and Purpose, so that when a negotiation starts others feel cowed by your self-confidence. You establish up-front […]
Back in April 1986 Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe made a powerful speech at the Lord Mayor’s Diplomatic Banquet in London in which he called for an an end to the global agriculture subsidy race. I remember it well, as I helped him draft it. Some changes have happened since […]
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 […]
This Guardian piece by Professor Robert Service about NATO/Russia has been noted in Poland. One sentence caught my eye (highlighted): What is more, Russians, from their present and future Presidents downwards, can see no justification for the US to turn states on Russia’s borders into engines of American regional power. […]
