Over at DIPLOMAT magazine is my latest piece on the highs and lows of diplomatic public speaking. See this excellent example when Queen Elizabeth I chastised the new Polish Ambassador – in fluent Latin: The first speech any Ambassador makes in her/his own right is the formal address to the […]
Here’s a depressing piece at Open Democracy by Turi Munthe, who summarises for us an analysis by Dr Martin Moore and the Media Standards Trust of the steep relative and absolute decline in foreign news coverage in the British newspapers: The statistics make frightening reading. They compared foreign news coverage […]
Peggy Noonan was one of Ronald Reagan’s speechwriters. One of her (and his) finest moments was this: She famously gave candidate Obama some fine words of support during his election campaign: He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; […]
It’s not easy to get the BBC to apologise for making a major blunder, but it happens. For example today: The BBC has apologised over reports claiming millions of pounds raised by Band Aid was used to buy arms. In March, World Service’s Assignment said cash raised by charities to […]
This is odd. Andrew Heyn as HM Ambassador to Burma has been writing in implausibly frank terms in the Guardian about Burma’s forthcoming elections. Or, should I say ‘elections’, as the form appears to exceed the substance in democratic terms? Thus: People here believe that the vote will somehow be […]
Just read this from the BBC about Iran’s dilemma over whether to stone women to death, or not: The Iranian authorities like to portray an image of a country and a system misperceived and misrepresented in the West. It is an image that plays well with some western liberals, who […]
Brian Barder and I are deadly ideological rivals. He hews to a number of Old Labour-style positions which (for me) are like the sort of exhibits you find in the gloomier rooms of the Natural History Museum which no-one visits. More foreign aid! No to swingeing cuts in public services! […]
Sir John Sawers has become the first ever Chief of MI6 to make a public speech about the Secret Intelligence Service and what it does. Good extracts from what he said this morning here: Sir John added that it was essential for MI6 agents and other intelligence agencies to be […]
Disclosure note: John Sawers and I have known each other since we worked together in South Africa in the twlight years of apartheid. * * * * * Here on the SIS website is the full (and presumably authorised) text of Sir John Sawers’ speech this morning. The very fact […]
