Don’t you just shed a silent tear when you look at Government ‘mission statements’? You know the sort of thing: Working towards a safer Britain Why would they do that? What’s with the -r? Why not work towards a safe Britain? Here’s a real life example from Scotland: Towards a Safer […]
Here is the brilliant Keith Hennessey looking at the sprawling problems of the US motor industry and the Obama Administration’s moves to try to keep General Motors alive, inlcuding praise for parts of the package. A senior American economist told me the other day that the problems of the US auto […]
David Hannay (now Baron Hannay of Chiswick) is one of the most brilliant diplomats of my long FCO years. When he was British Ambassador at the UN his telegrams were extraordinary. Any international issue you could think of, summarised in two terse pages, a written combination of analytical insight and operational […]
Michael Yon has built up a great reputation for going to look at tough places under his own steam and reporting on them to an Internet readership. Here he is following a major US diplomatic push in Asia (not something much covered in the UK). US Defence Secretary Gates talks […]
A friendly word for my efforts from Spain-based Owsblog: One to watch: I’ve just spent a while reading a few posts over on "The World’s First Diplomatic Blogoir", good look, nice ‘feel’ and well written by Charles Crawford. The Easter weekend’s ‘Smeargate’ hoohah is what led me there, from comments […]
As the European Parliament elections loom, the sheer horror of the Conservative Party’s idea of leaving the ‘mainstream’ EPP party bloc comes to the fore. I have written about this here. But behold now this onslaught from Tory Grandees, no less. The Independent is scurrying to catch up. The argument […]
Craig Murray writes approvingly of the zany survey of political opinions run by Political Compass. But it was posted at 0200 hrs, so maybe baby Cameron Murray was stopping him getting a much needed rest. Read the Political Compass FAQs. They are a hoot. See eg this description of why […]
This is so grisly an analysis of how President Obama is whittling the Clintons down to very little, it might almost be true. Hence Hillary Clinton’s tentative responses on North Korea?
Have a look at the excellent analysis by Max Atkinson of Hillary Clinton trying to sound robust while also not being too specific on the subject of how the USA might respond to North Korea. As the video clips show, she is choosing her words so carefully that it all […]
Does the very presence of US forces in South Korea encourage South Korean complacency and North Koream truculence, a version of the moral hazard problem? Some pertinent thoughts from Johnathan Pearce at Samizdata on this subject, plus some excellent comments from Subotai Bahadur (my emphasis): There is the additional possibility, […]
