Here is a gushing and perceptive article from Spiegel Online on the wonders of Poland since the end of communism and the serene beauty of today’s Germany/Poland relationship. Nice ending: If old clichés have any traction at all anymore, it is in the vast Polish countryside, which lags behind urban […]
My mind turns to Myanmar/Burma (Burma hereinafter, as it’s shorter). A faraway country of which I know nothing. Burma is larger than Ukraine in geographical terms and (with some 50 million people) than Spain in population terms. So comfortably towards the top of global country rankings on both counts. But […]
Ukraine is a complex place. Large country. Poised politically, culturally and psychologically between ‘Europe’ and ‘Russia’. Here is a piece by Democratist who thinks that all is not well: President Yanukovich is in the process of creating a highly personalized style of government. According to our sources, all revenue streams have […]
Here is another DIPLOMAT piece, this time on ‘transitions’ from communism in Europe: Back in the mid-1980s I was the Foreign Office speechwriter working for Sir Geoffrey Howe. Exciting times. Mikhail Gorbachev was leading the Soviet Union in what looked like a strongly positive new direction. In Poland the Solidarity […]
In a result unexpected by me at least (I am not following Serbia’s goings-on too closely these days, and the polls suggested that Tadic would win again) Tomislav Nikolic as leader of the Serbian Progressive Party has won Serbia’s Presidential Elections today by a clear nose, ousting former President Boris […]
I have never in these pages given you an (almost) full account of the expulsion from Moscow of a number of British diplomats back in May 1996 for – the Russians said – spying. This was the first major spy row between Moscow and a ‘Western’ country following the end […]
Here is my former FCO colleague George Fergusson, characteristically standing tall after a wretched mugging attack in which he lost an eye: The old Etonian and Oxford graduate, whose family has a proud history in the British Army and diplomatic service, underwent surgery on Saturday at Western Eye Hospital in London, but doctors […]
Update I now also have a piece over at Commentator which elaborates on the material below. * * * * * The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has pronounced on a case brought against Russia by a number of Polish relatives of victims of the Katyn Massacres. Even […]
Here is my latest Telegraph blog piece, this time on the dilemmas in negotiating with a country such as North Korea where the usual options of Persuasion, Carrot or Stick seem to make little impact: Many humans (and even some governments) aren’t donkeys. So another layer of analysis applies. As […]
One of the many best things about writing this blog is that people I hardly know or may not have ever met get in touch in all sorts of ways. Thus. Remember my piece a while back about the startling and startlingly bad film Battle of Warsaw 1920? A reader today […]
