My latest piece at DIPLOMAT has another gallop round some of the issues surrounding Mass and Velocity in diplomacy: The EU’s common foreign policy is particularly prone to piling on Mass but losing Velocity. Lots of European countries intoning the same policies, but struggling to take decisions to implement any […]
I am briefly back from my travels around Europe including to the CTBTO in Vienna and then the UN System Staff College in Turin. Next stop? Back to Warsaw and the Polish Institute of Diplomacy. Anyway, in the past few weeks the students of UK Universities have been grappling with their […]
Responding to my piece pondering the calamitous performance of Ed Miliband, long-time reader Nigel Sedgwick offers some excellent points on electoral reform in the UK. Posted previously as a comment, but worth looking at properly: Charles writes: “Here in the United Kingdom our “first past the post” voting system produces […]
Over at Diplomatic Courier in Washington is a new edition looking at various aspects of global food issues. Including my piece on Food and Diplomacy: Where better to start pondering the global politics of food than in China, some 2500 years ago? The adviser to Duke Wen of Wei noted […]
Remember that fleeting row about the leaked record of conversation between SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and the French Ambassador that amused the UK general election campaign for at least ten minutes? First it wasn’t even a memo at all – it was a fiendish ZINOVIEV MEMO INVENTED BY MI5 aimed at […]
++ UPDATE ++ Haha never believe opinion polls. According to the exit polls Duda has won the first round (35% or so) with Komorowski failing into second place (32%). Kukiz scored a mighty 20%. A huge battle will ensue for the second round run-off in two weeks’ time… * * […]
Don’t you hate the creepy expression reaching out, where asking or contacting will do just fine? Thank you for reaching out to me. Let’s reach out to the other side. It has all sorts of subtle or sly or just annoying meanings, depending on context. The key thing about it […]
Poor Zoe Williams. So desperate is she to fulfil her production norms at the Guardian that she plumps up the column space with total nonsense about Nostalgia: What is it with bunting, anyway? And The Great British Bake Off, and “vintage”, and Victoria sponge, Kilner jars with home-pickled currants, gingham […]
If you are in London on Tuesday and sick of the UK general elections, have fun thinking about Poland’s Presidential elections instead. You can watch the Polish Ambassador Witold Sobkow and me in discussion with Liam Halligan on the always interesting subject of Poland’s transition from communism to what it is now. […]
The UK general election takes place soon. In years gone by I used to follow every twist and turn of the elections process. Now? Not so much. Some sort of strange fragmentation is happening, so that our trusty mainly two-party system erodes into something that might well be more ‘democratic’ […]
