Was there a massacre by Sri Lankan forces as they finished off the Tamil Tigers? And did the UN know about it? Seems so. The numbers of people killed look to go well beyond the Srebrenica war crime. Critics of such horrors often miss one of the unspoken points about […]
My guess? As much as anyone else. Here is a description of Arabs themselves discussing their problems: “We Arabs are at the bottom of everything — at the bottom of every index: literacy, capitalism, the rights of women. Everything. In our countries, we have cults of personality, dictatorships, dynasties . . . Where is […]
I dimly recall one of my interviews at the Civil Service Selection Board back in 1979. The issue of Geography and Determinism came up and I recall making a couple of brilliant insights as to how far (and when) the way people behave is shaped by where and how they […]
Craig Murray has graciously has accepted my proposal of a public debate – venue and format to be agreed. He also rightly has pointed out that I never finished reviewing his book Murder in Samarkand including the key passages about his head-on collision with the FCO over torture and the War on […]
An Independent reader opines with eloquence on my work as HM Ambassador in Warsaw as described here: It all seems reasonably clear. Charles Crawford is a gutless little tosser who clearly knew that Poland was being used for the illegal torture and interrogation of prisoners – but he did nothing about it. And now […]
A former top MI6 officer has some brisk things to say about the way foreign policy is made in the UK these days – and the consequences: Mr Inkster said the world was moving from "being policed by America to be policed by nobody" and the danger of an increasingly […]
My colleague Craig Murray throws down the gauntlet; There is an interesting link between Charles and I on torture … All the CIA rendition flights to Uzbekistan came from Szczytno-Szymany in Poland. We now know that the CIA had both use of that airbase and a secret torture prison nearby.https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,621450,00.html I […]
Recent media reports have it that my old FCO ‘line manager’ Nicola Brewer has stepped down as CEO of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to replace Paul Boateng as High Commissioner (Ambassador-equivalent in a Commonwealth country) to South Africa. The credibility of this Independent report is wrecked by claims that […]
Here is the mighty Richard Posner looking at some Big Picture economic issues. A good passage about ‘rational’ descision-making: If rationality means omniscience, then it is indeed an unsound premise for economic reasoning. If it means reasoning unaffected by emotion, then it misunderstands emotion. The word "emotional" has overtones of […]
Former diplomat Simon Dickson has some positive things to say about FCO bloggers following a seminar he attended: How do they assess their success? For a couple, they are among the first bloggers in their respective countries, which should score a few credibility points for UK plc. Some quote instances where […]
