I have been struggling with my paper on military/civilian cooperation in ‘fragile states’. It is easy to think that the whole business is hopeless. It is just not possible in the short time-scales we all can cope with these days to work out how best to achieve Stability while maintaining Legitimacy. Not […]
Here, via Tim Worstall, is the blandly smiling, terrifying Tooheyesque face of Richard Murphy, a man bent on extracting ever-more tax to increase the flow of his collectivist coffee: It is in the private sector that we need cuts – or more tax if they refuse to do it. The […]
In the UK most political letters announcing the writer’s resignation say what they have to say, perhaps with a feigned or even real sentence or two of respect, then stop. Some go into some vital policy detail, albeit in thinly coded and very general terms. See Geoffrey Howe’s letter to Margaret […]
Is here. It is better than his Cairo speech which had rather too many philosophically incoherent passages. This one is easier to make, of course, as he is aiming it at one country in particular and not at an amorphous ‘Muslim world’. So the key messages can be more finely […]
Alert readers will notice that I have reorganised the site a little, to make the Search function better and to give greater emphasis to the various excellent services I offer – see the new buttons on the left. This blogging business takes a lot of time, but generates zero revenue. […]
Craig Murray links approvingly to the opinions of one Yassamine Mather of Hopi (Hands Off the People of Iran). She takes a view commendably similar to that of Christopher Hitchens, albeit from a rather different lumpen Marxist angle: It is no surprise that the highly contested results of the presidential elections in […]
Obama fan Camille Paglia looks at that Cairo speech, and is less impressed than she had hoped to be. Thus: Obama’s speech (which I read rather than heard) seemed to my teacher’s eye like a strong first draft rather than a polished final product… The Cairo speech is well-organized, ticking […]
Back in 1973 I was at Oxford University with the likes of notorious toxophilist Tony Blair and Benazir Bhutto. It was a time of student so-called unrest, with a mass sit-in at the Schools Building in autumn 1973 to demand a Central Students Union. Basically, see, the point was that the […]
Here is the full text of President Obama’s Cairo speech. It had many strong points. A friendly, open-hearted yet serious and businesslike tone. Lots of inclusive words such as ‘respect’ and ‘partnership’. Some quite firm lines on Israel and its right to exist, to the point of being seen as surprisingly […]
The age-old problem for Russia is, how to run a territory sprawling over some eleven time zones? This means Moscow catching the attention of regional leaders thousands of miles away – and keeping them in reasonable line. Over the years a Firm Hand has been seen as the best method. […]
