The claim by the defence of Radovan Karadzic that he had a deal with Richard Holbrooke ("This is it – leave public and political life in Republika Srpska and you won’t have to go to the Hague." "OK…") is back in the news again. Back in mid-1996, only a few months […]
The Fraud Squad lick their lips: A former Labour minister was facing a fraud probe last night after taking £16,000 of taxpayers’ money for a mortgage that did not exist. Elliot Morley claimed £800 a month for a home in his Scunthorpe constituency, even though the mortgage had already been […]
So on towards the policy core of Craig Murray’s Murder in Samarkand – his policy disagreement with the FCO over torture and the War on Terror. In Chapter 9 Craig describes an EU human rights Ambassadorial demarche. I have analysed the genre here. His description bears out my earlier point, […]
For any reader still pondering on the Torture issue, I recommend the judgment by the House of Lords in 2005 on the issue of when evidence obtained by torture (or alleged to be so obtained) might be admitted in UK judicial proceedings. There are in fact seven judgments in this […]
An Independent reader opines with eloquence on my work as HM Ambassador in Warsaw as described here: It all seems reasonably clear. Charles Crawford is a gutless little tosser who clearly knew that Poland was being used for the illegal torture and interrogation of prisoners – but he did nothing about it. And now […]
Who is ‘responsible’ for what and when it comes to leaking emails written by others? I previously jotted down some thoughts on this here, picking up some contrarian arguments from Brian Barder. On his site the subject has rumbled on, with various readers baffled (as am I) by his argument […]
Here is the mighty Richard Posner looking at some Big Picture economic issues. A good passage about ‘rational’ descision-making: If rationality means omniscience, then it is indeed an unsound premise for economic reasoning. If it means reasoning unaffected by emotion, then it misunderstands emotion. The word "emotional" has overtones of […]
Who is responsible for the current financial turmoil? Anyone? Here is William Rees-Mogg using a sharp scalpel to cut through to what he says is the Prime Minister’s personal responsibility for a serious misjudgement on Lloyds/HBOS, with massive ramifications down the road for us all: It is bad enough that Gordon Brown […]
The Tax Justice Network is a lot of busy people keen on extracting more taxes from all round the planet: … our approach does not fit easily into either of the old political categories of left and right. We do not argue generally for high or low taxes (that is for […]
Iain Dale carries a well-turned interview with David Cameron. Both interviewer and subject emerge well from a civilised and intelligent exchange. This caught my eye: How will you defend the right to offend?This goes back to the ‘do you listen’ question, because on the one hand you don’t want someone […]
