Remember all those Eurozone anxieties? They still bubble away. Ambrose Evans Pritchard: Most investors seem to agree that the EU-IMF plan is unworkable, merely buying time for German and French banks to shift Greek liabilities on to EU taxpayers. A Barclays survey found that 82pc of clients expect the eurozone […]
Update: see in the Comments a terrific contribution from Michael S who gives excellent background * * * * * Craig is back with us, this time sniping at the British Ambassador in Tashkent, Rupert Joy. What has Rupert Joy done wrong this time? Shock! He’s attended a fashion event led by […]
Iain Dale calls for a debate on the options for limiting strikes in economic sectors which provide ‘essential services’: Trade unions have an important part to play in trying to represent their members’ interests and individual rights should not be trampled on by the state. But there has to be […]
Renewed talk of changing the core EU Treaties, this time to strengthen sanctions against countries which show themselves unworthy of being in the Eurozone? The problem with changing one part of the EU core structure (this time to meet German demands that Germany and its banks be protected from being […]
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague is in Moscow. Some thoughts. One of my earliest blog postings from back in 2008 described some of the issues arising from the Russian authorities’ beastly treatment of the British Council. It recorded something said to me by a senior Russian diplomat in 1996 […]
In which I ruminate and gloominate on the scale of the problems facing small business as they try to hire people these days, and identify a brilliantly simple way to allow all of us to choose the degree of legal risk (and legal security) we want to have. Thereby transforming […]
The tragic death in Afghanistan of aid worker Linda Norgrove as US Special Forces closed in, seconds away from rescuing her, makes us think about Negotiation again. At the International Bar Association annual conference in Vancouver last week I heard various people say that some major corporations were changing course, […]
So, here I am in shiny modern Vancouver, gearing up for the long flight home this evening. Our ADR Group session on Mediation at the Sharp End at the International Bar Association annual conference went well, with a joint presentation on the diplomatic, legal, negotiating and psychological issues arising from […]
I have been writing a piece for Business and Politics on Greed. It has involved intensive research on the Internet. I thought I would share with my loyal readers my core findings. Thus: Let’s run some Google searches and look at the Top 10 Greedy Grabbers: Greedy financiers: […]
Here is a fascinating piece over at Spiegel Online describing the ambitions of the EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs (sic) to punish those EU member states which have the temerity to sell products which people want to buy and threby run a nice export surplus: According to draft […]
