Sir John Sawers has given a significant speech at King’s College London on the Limits of Security. Here is the ‘official’ website version. And here is my piece for Daily Telegraph Comment mentioning it with (as you can see) my disclaimer mentioning that I worked with Sir John on his speech, his first after […]
Just look at this. A Guardian report about a large and rather over-excited football banner brought into a Belgian football stadium: The banner which said Red or Dead referred to the Standard colours and also showed a drawing of a masked man with a knife and the head of Anderlecht […]
Part of the problem we have with talking about anything is achieving an agreed sense of perspective on what we are talking about. Recall my piece about cycling and risk: It all boils down to our old friend ‘striking a balance’. As a society we have proclaimed that ‘using a handheld […]
Back in the mists of time I wrote this: In a city there’s a nice large green public park, where families and individuals stroll around happily. One day a group of leather-jacketed aggressive foul-mouthed types and some snarly dogs turn up and postion themselves prominently in one corner. This happens […]
That row in Poland about my speechwriting support for former foreign Minister Radek Sikorski rumbles on inconclusively. See eg here (where they impertinently add a year to my age) and here. Excellent that Hungarians are following this saga with keen interest. And Czech that! Here are some extended thoughts from me about […]
My new piece for the Telegraph is on immigration. It turns on the distinction between people who enter the country by following the rules, and those who don’t: Immigrants into the UK fall into different broad categories. Rich people buying an exclusive UK pad. Foreigners ready to invest their money […]
Tomorrow at LVS School in Ascot I am giving a presentation to the public on the general subject of Spies. Always a fascinating theme down the centuries. Plenty about the subject here on my website, including my piece for DIPLOMAT in 2010 that looked briefly at the differences between HUMINT, […]
Attentive readers will recall my Near Death Experience in an NHS hospital back in 2011, and the thoughts it prompted on how a large UK hospital works: In one banal way of looking at it, the NHS is a huge quasi-shop. It has ‘customers’ who need ‘products’, so the key […]
A reader has sent me this fascinating email with many points of historical interest (reproduced with his permission) on the general subject of ‘diplomatic asylum’ (and the Assange case): Dear Charles I’m a retired DS officer, who follows your website with interest. I enjoy what you say and how you […]
