My piece for The Commentator on the PM’s UK/EU speech as a speech: … Those sentences, like the opening blather about the origins of the European Union, are intended to send a strong signal to other European capitals: You won’t get a better UK Conservative leader than me who has […]
Have the Algerian authorities messed up this ghastly crisis, by forcing a deadly showdown? One view says yes. Even if the terrorists had started killing the hostages under their control, it’s better to keep trying to talk to them to head off complete disaster. An outcome in which some terrorists […]
Here is an elegant bit of work by Jonathan Golub (golub means pigeon in Serbian, by the way) attempting to measure which EU member states are better at getting their way within the system. I could add all sorts of glosses, but read the whole thing and see for yourself […]
Imagine you’re a member of the public mulling over EU issues and the future of the UK/EU relationship. Your heart must sink at the prospect of assorted former Ambassadors hooting mournfully at each other on these questions. Over at Telegraph Blogs is my latest piece on this subject, pointing to […]
Just when you thought it safe to return to the water, here’s me over at Commentator on the astounding idea of the Consent of the Governed: Back in Europe the many issues arising from the UK/EU debate are no less far-reaching, and boil down to this ‘consent of the governed’ […]
The Climate Summit at Copenhagen was a supreme example of collective European negotiating incompetence: Copenhagen was a startling example of how this big tent approach to agreeing global issues is unworkable. It predictably slumped into an uncontrolled haggle which as each day passed grew more and more detached from respectable […]
Now and again this site alludes to my brief glory days as a chess player, or at least an avid chess follower. So yesterday I was pleased to be invited by Grandmaster Nigel Short to the 2012 London Chess Classic at Olympia. This huge event features all sorts of different […]
I am gearing up to give a coaching/skills session next week at a school on the general theme of Difficult Conversations. Notably with other colleagues – but especially with parents. It turns out that I am not the only one sending a stream of idiotic and abusive emails to schools […]
Here’s one to ponder. Purely hypothetical of course. Say you are an ex-diplomat turmned consultant of no little erstwhile seniority, and you are asked to help with a significant business problem involving a foreign government and a private corporation. You are happy in principle to help the corporation move the […]
Watch this: A superb sign that at long last Africa is grasping that development aid should just go away.
