We cherish the idea that we clever Westerners have something called ‘freedom of the press’. But what exactly does that expression mean? Does it mean that those who constitute the body of publishing folk who define themselves as ‘the press’ have special status and associated freedoms which may or may […]
Despite my wretched ankle accident in Nizhny Novgorod, my interest in things Russian is reanimated. Part of the fascination with Russia lies in the baffling issue of how in fact a society moves from rigid oppressive stupidity to something far more flexible, democratic and smart. When the USSR broke up, […]
One of the things I do on training courses aimed at telling people how to Write with Impact is to cite Shrek. Issues and Shrek are like onions. They have layers. No piece of writing can address all the layers of any problem. The trick is to show awareness of other layers but focus […]
To pass the time and take my mind off my bright blue foot, I have done a couple of quickies for the Telegraph Blog site where there has been a lot of energetic stuff about the EU Summit and all that. Thus yesterday: We awoke this morning to various commentators […]
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 […]
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 […]
The first meeting of the Foreign Secretary’s new Locarno Group ("senior FCO alumni, selected for their breadth of experience and expertise") took place today. The aim, part of an energetic and even impressive series of moves led by William Hague to transform the FCO’s performance at many new levels, is not […]
Famous Australian philosopher Tim Blair has coined a trenchant saying which is now known round the world as Blair’s Law. It illuminates a depressing but seemingly inexorable tendency: "… the ongoing process by which the world’s multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force" Almost anything said by the Western world’s […]
Here is a handy one-stop-shop for most of my articles for DIPLOMAT magazine. It includes a link to my latest piece on Diplomatic Drafting and Wikileaks: When I was Ambassador in Poland, the FCO published a fat volume of diplomatic despatches from the 1950s and 1960s, so I could see […]
Hurrah! You can fight back against burglars in England (as long as you act ‘instinctively’). So proclaims Minister of Justice Ken Clarke: In an historic move, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke yesterday announced a major strengthening of the rights of victims standing up to intruders in their property. It means anyone who […]
