Opinion / Negotiation Technique

The Chilcot Enquiry On Iraq

And now, a new UK enquiry into the history of the Iraq intervention. Craig Murray is rude about the Chilcot enquiry team, including my former boss Rod Lyne. I myself find it hard to understand why an official who had a senior job in selling UK policy during this period has […]

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Superpower, Superbower … Supercower

President Obama’s sagging ratings are causing many people to wonder what is going on. Mark Steyn of course is no fan of the President bowing to kings and emperors, and calls the President the Superbower: Along with his choreographic gaucherie goes his peculiar belief that all of human history is […]

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How To Reward Effort (Or Not)

A Polish friend sends me this: An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would […]

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Dominic Raab MP (To Be)

Welcome Iain Dale readers My former FCO lawyer colleague Dominic Raab has stormed home to win the Conservative Party nomination for the Esher and Walton parliamentary constituency, after securing a strong win in the constituency’s ‘open primary’ when any member of the public could come along to choose a candidate […]

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Climate Change And Science (2)

"Move along folks, nothing to see from all those leaked climate emails" say various people, such as these. And these. Well some people want to linger to look more closely at the wreckage. Where they seem to spot three serious issues: moves to prevent publication of rival views manipulation/massaging of data […]

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Climate Change And Science

In a startling development which is likely to change the very method of scientific enquiry, mainly for the better, hackers have grabbed from prominent UK scientists (Hadley CRU) a huge mass of material going back years about Climate Change – and published it online. See the New York Times. And […]

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EU Top Jobs: Europe Squeaks With One Voice

I previously briefed you on the machinations behind the scramble for EU Top Jobs and the close relationship between Foreign Policy and Physics. The dramatic result? Not very exciting. Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy is chosen as president of the European Council and the UK’s Catherine Ashton becomes the EU High Represenative (aka foreign […]

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Who Owns What?

Look at it like this. In a city there’s a nice large green public park, where families and individuals stroll around happily. One day a group of leather-jacketed aggressive foul-mouthed types and some snarly dogs turn up and postion themselves prominently in one corner. This happens day after day. Gradually […]

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Craig Murray On Ghana’s Oil

A lively piece of work by Craig Murray looking at the prospects for Ghana getting rich and ruined by Oil Money. Knowing nothing about Ghana or indeed about Oil Money, I leave it to you to work out whether his well-turned analysis makes sense. It is certainly interesting enough.  But […]

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Patriarch Pavle, 1914-2009

Patriarch Pavle (Paul) of the Serbian Orthodox Church died today at the age of 95. A tiny, mild mannered yet complex figure, Patriarch Pavle did his best to identify a principled way forward during the madness of recent decades in Serbia but found himself entangled in the politics of Serbia’s […]

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