The FT attempts to describe how this morass of trade rules complexity has hit the rocks (Note: deliberate mixed metaphor). See also this. When one has worked in Diplomacy for as long as I have, one realises just how little one knows. So on this subject I have primitive instincts/prejudices […]
Peter Preston gives a rather overwritten analysis of Serbia and its prospects for joining the EU – see eg the obscure Paul Anka reference. Why, he asks, is the EU mumbling about bringing the former Yugoslavia space (plus Albania) into its ranks? Partly because the EU mumbles about everything. Partly […]
Back to Craig Murray’s Murder in Samarkand – off with his family to Tashkent (Chapter 3). Uzbekistan was one of the fifteen Soviet republics to become independent in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Craig offers a few paragraphs on the history of ‘Uzbek independence’, without saying anything about what […]
When Milosevic was abruptly transferred to the Hague Tribunal in June 2001 I dusted off my barristerial wig and sent a lively telegram to London from Belgrade on the theme "Is Milosevic Innocent?". My point was that linking Milosevic to the calamitous events in Bosnia and other non-Serbia parts of former Yugoslavia […]
Do we bring up our children to take seriously the difference between right and wrong? We think we do. Not much sign that it is working. One way to catch their attention is to lay out clearly to them that Bad Behaviour has Bad Consequences. That if they do not […]
Moving on to the substance of Craig Murray’s book. Chapter One opens with a description of Craig leaving the Embassy in Samarkand (seemingly early in his posting) to attend a dissident trial. …out I went, still feeling pretty uncomfortable at people calling me ‘Sir’… Part of Craig’s self-presentation lies in […]
My earlier posting on Craig Murray’s telegram to the FCO recording serious human rights abuses in Uzbekistan dismissed the response he won from HQ, namely that the UK would press for an ‘EU demarche’. Why? It sounds grand and important. Not an easy question to answer simply. What is a […]
A reader not unreasonably draws attention to a link in my previous post to a fascinating original FCO document reporting a conversation with Craig Murray. He wonders whether diplomats who ‘temper’ their reporting themselves create the impression that others who report more passionately are the only FCO people with a conscience. In […]
Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison to global acclaim on 11 February 1990. Despite being First Secretary (Political) at our Embassy in Cape Town at the time, I missed it. My friend and colleague John (now Sir John) Sawers was there in the thick of the action, and was probably […]
President Kaczynski of Poland says that ‘for now’ he will not sign the EU’s Lisbon Treaty. The BBC report describes Kaczynski as "a conservative who has long opposed the reform treaty". But what about this? "I really want ratification." One way or the other, President Kaczynski is good at saying […]
