Here is Baroness Ashton laying out her stall for EU collective foreign policy, in an ill-drafted text piling on one wordy cliche after another: I believe that a lot can be achieved with quiet diplomacy. We need people who can listen as well as talk, and who can work behind […]
When I was growing up in Diplomacy and in charge of detailed practical arrangements for many high-level visits (especially in Moscow in the early Yeltsin years, when one Cabinet Minister or Parliamentary delegation after another was jetting in), I was always left smirking when the then Ambassador would fret over […]
Mr. President, Members of the Court, I am a devoted but disgruntled South Australian. “I hereby declare the independence of South Australia.” What has happened? Precisely nothing. Have I committed an internationally wrongful act in your presence? Of course not. Have I committed an ineffective act? Very likely. I have […]
Descriptions of the impressively varied commercial and other roles of the IPCC Chair Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri are going viral very fast. James Delingpole politely wonders whether Dr Pachauri may have some, er, conflicts of interest. Questions for HM Government’s busy delegation at Copenhagen: what are you doing to make […]
Talking of libel, I am drawn mothishly to the various legal processes involving a certain Johanna Kaschke suing different people for defamation. Harry fears for blog freedom. One of her lawsuits is against ex-punk, ex-Trot David Osler. Not easy to follow all this if you don’t follow it. But do […]
Here is an online petition calling for reform of the English libel laws. Not sure that I quite agree with the idea of exempting ‘interactive Internet sites’. But this area of law clearly needs a serious spring-clean, if only to work out how best to balance free speech, fair comment […]
Who said this? In 1989 I made a trip to England. I was hosted by Prime Minister [Margaret] Thatcher at her residence at Chequers for official talks and she invited me personally up to the attic. There, in the attic of this ancient, ancient palace, there were many antique relics […]
Americans have such an energetic writing style: Is he just a rookie in the political big leagues, hoodwinked by Beltway old-timers? Or is the vacillating, ineffectual servant of banking interests we’ve been seeing on TV this fall who Obama really is? … There’s no other way to say it: Barack […]
A reader points me to this delicious YouTube conversations between two gushy American women gushing profusely over the just oh-so-wonderful way Cuba has adapted its energy needs to the end of all those Soviet subsidies, including by organic gardening: I gave up after the first few minutes, when they had […]
The full text of that President Obama-Bush Nobel Peace Prize speech is here. Some good strong passages here, not least the strong reference to the E-word and its linking to al-Qaida: I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. […]
