Lordy. The BBC on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: The pact was signed by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and his Russian counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, in Moscow. It led to the carving-up of Poland between Nazi Germany and the USSR, as well as the annexation by the USSR of eastern Finland, […]
Lots of people are watching this. So you must too. And if you are unfortunate enough to watch the mawkish, trashy British equivalent of this show in the coming weeks, just remember what Talent is really all about – deftness, insight and moral sensibility. Show us, Kseniya Simonova:
Did PM Putin deliberately sit President Obama in a chair way too low, to make him look and feel awkward for the TV cameras? The great debate unfolds. The point of such sly diplomatic insults is that the victim dare not show that s/he is aware of them, even if […]
Is here. It is better than his Cairo speech which had rather too many philosophically incoherent passages. This one is easier to make, of course, as he is aiming it at one country in particular and not at an amorphous ‘Muslim world’. So the key messages can be more finely […]
A pertinent comment from Spy Blog (Watching Them, Watching Us) on my posting below, asking about diplomatic gossip about expellees and asking whether the absence of names of expelled diplomats ‘taints’ others who might be leaving normally. First, gossip. You can’t and shouldn’t and won’t stop gossip. But it’s not […]
UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has visited Poland. Various Foreign Secretaries have swung through Poland for commemorative or other events. But straightforward bilateral visits by British Foreign Secretaries have been few and far between in recent years. None in my time from 2003-2007 (although Jack Straw took part in the […]
Alex Massie perceptively wonders whether there is anything to be done with North Korea other than Doing Nothing (Much), as every other option is fraught with problems. He kindly says that he would like to hear from me on the subject. Always pleased to oblige. Here goes. A policy is […]
Or maybe its corporatistic Socialism? Who cares? Part of the problem here is definitional. No mainstream liberal actually wants government to completely seize the means of production, and no mainstream conservative believes that there’s no room for any government regulation or social insurance. Both sides believe in a "mixed economy" […]
The age-old problem for Russia is, how to run a territory sprawling over some eleven time zones? This means Moscow catching the attention of regional leaders thousands of miles away – and keeping them in reasonable line. Over the years a Firm Hand has been seen as the best method. […]
The EU has not sat idly by as British democracy reels under the weight of its own loathsome misbehaviour. On 7 May the EU launched its new Eastern Partnership – an attempt to set up a new sort of structured relationship with the obviously (more or less) ‘European’ parts of the […]
