My extended thoughts on the Russian elections for the national parliament (Duma) which took place on Sunday, 4 December. I played a modest part in the proceedings as an official international observer accredited to the elections under the auspices of the International Institute for Integration Studies, a Moscow-based grouping close to […]
Not sure if I have linked here to my LSE book review about electronic voting, so here it is. Thus: The heart of the book is the authors’ emphasis on sensible risk analysis. Above all, they punch on the nose the odious “precautionary principle” – the superficially appealing but in fact […]
Here’s an astute point I heard at a top FCO meeting recently:”The world of states and the world of people are diverging…”Neatly put, and profoundly true. See also the Eurozone, passim.How does that apply to Russia? Russia is the sprawling space on earth which took to the highest, maddest level […]
Former FCO Minister Denis MacShane MP has written a small but energetic book praising Kosovo’s independence: Why Kosovo Still Matters (sic). Here it is, a perfect Christmas stocking-filler, the more perfect if bought via this link so that I get a few groats from Amazon: The main interest of the book for […]
Yesterday my Sunday was interrupted by a request from RT-TV (Russia’s answer to the BBC’s world broadcasts) to take part in a programme talking about the Eurozone in general and Italy in particular. As they asked nicely and as it was not too far to the BBC Oxford studio where the […]
Most readers of this website are interested in one way or another in ‘foreign affairs’. As I have described on different occasions here, the heart of international diplomacy is the state. That idea in its modern form emerged from the Peace of Westphalia. Here are some passages from my 2009 […]
Last week I attended the UK premiere of a new Polish film, Battle of Warsaw 1920. It gives a lurid and (inevitably) hugely simplified account of one of Europe’s greatest battles. As I left the cinema I found myself wrestling with a grim and unwelcome question. Had it been the worst […]
I am entranced not only by the sound of my voice, but also by the sight of it. Here once again is my contribution to the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, describing my long and ever-fascinating diplomatic career. Many points of interest here, including on South Africa’s not-so-peaceful transition away from […]
Andrzej Lepper, turbulent leader of Poland’s left-populist Self-Defence party, yesterday was found dead. Apparently by hanging himself in his party office in Warsaw Where to start? The English Wikipedia page gives the basics of his lively career, describing how he came from a modest rural family background and with little formal education […]
Remember the Smolensk air-crash which killed President Lech Kaczynski and so many other senior Poles? Disagreement has rumbled on about how far mistakes or misjudgements made by the Polish aircrew and/or Russian control tower were responsible, but a major Polish report has now accepted that a good slice of the […]
