My latest piece for PunditWire looks at some of the feeble messages emanating from President Obama’s much heralded Cairo speech in 2009 and wonders if they missed the point. It notes that the vast crowds in Cairo demonstrating against the Muslim Brotherhood have been identifying the current US Ambassador by […]
Every now and again an article comes along that assembles all one’s own inchoate half-thoughts into a free-flowing stupendous whole. This time Charles Moore delivers on the plight of wretched US über-leaker Edward Snowden: Acting in the name of a morality which disdains allegiance to the rule of national law, […]
Long time no blog. I am in Warsaw to give masterclasses in Negotiation Skills to Polish officials. I have just spent the best part of an hour dictating into the computer someone fascinating observations on the latest revelations about Western electronic eavesdropping and the renewed political unrest in Egypt. All […]
UPDATE This piece below (“Short, pithy, packed with more wisdom than you find in bloviations ten times the length”) has been picked up by the Browser Here is my latest piece over at Commentator, looking at the startlingly poor performance by a clueless State Department spokeswoman when asked to […]
So much going on these days it is scarcely worth bothing to opine on it all. The Nigel Lawson call for the UK to think seriously about leaving the EU is a huge shift. The Unthinkable is being Thought. The US and Russia are trying to get the warring factions […]
Here I am again, this time quoted in the Daily Telegraph on the always interesting subject of Balkan apologies: Charles Crawford, a former British ambassador to Belgrade, said the language used by Mr Nikolic represented a drastic change from his previous questioning of the scope of the atrocity. Coming a […]
My latest piece over at Punditwire recalls a fine speech by Teresa Potocka in honour of Lady Thatcher at the Conservative Friends of Poland in early 2010: Lady Thatcher, in those dark years of martial law you were a symbol of hope and freedom for the Polish people. I grew […]
I find myself taking a fleeting interest in the goings-on at UNESCO as the time comes round to choose a new Director-General. Never a dull moment there – it is an especially ‘politicised’ UN body. Try this punchy piece about the way the Obama Administration may be manoeuvring to get […]
My latest piece at Punditwire, where I note with horror that the Milibandistic dry rot of filling speeches with meaningless – but also intellectually shifty – musty/needs exhortations has spread all the way across the Atlantic to President Obama’s speechwriters: … his [Obama’s] recent well received speech in Israel, where […]
Further thoughts on the speech by President Obama in Israel (scroll down to see the earlier post from my PunditWire piece below). This time prompted by analysis over at Foreign Policy. First, Hussein Ibish who thought that he did a terrific job: The psychological, communication and political skill that was […]
