My guess? As much as anyone else. Here is a description of Arabs themselves discussing their problems: “We Arabs are at the bottom of everything — at the bottom of every index: literacy, capitalism, the rights of women. Everything. In our countries, we have cults of personality, dictatorships, dynasties . . . Where is […]
You come from Africa. Now you are an American. Are you an African-American? Yes, but only if your skin is dark enough! What’s worse, if your skin happens to be not-so-dark and you put yourself in the new category of ‘white African-American’ as nothing else seems to fit, dark-skinned people who […]
California voters say a hefty NO to higher taxes and other ingenious schemes designed to prop up its bloated public sector. Excellent. The other day I heard a UK trade union official talk sensibly about a package of recommended shorter hours and pay-cuts for a few months to help a car […]
Here is BBRU 222 hosted by a Very British dude aka Jackart. It led me to diamond geezer’s wonderful site about all things London. And the "usual gaggle of terrifyingly illiberal post from feminists". Next BBRU is hosted by Liberal England. Suggestions to britblog[at]gmail[dot]com
My latest droll article for DIPLOMAT magazine on the strange twilight world of Diplomatic Expulsions is available here: You know the story. Only too well. Your spouse yells at you for what you have done. Or for what you have not done. Or for what you have come to represent in […]
Danny Finkelstein argues well in the Times that politics are getting more fragmented and less controlled: In his book The Long Tail Chris Anderson points out how the market for, say, books has in the past been constrained by the shop shelf space available to display. Online shopping has abolished this […]
I had an interesting chat today with a former FCO colleague about the slow evolution of FCO attitudes to expenses, which no doubt has echoes in much of the rest of government. When I joined the FCO we diplomats on foreign postings had various allowances, calculated laboriously to try to […]
The age-old problem for Russia is, how to run a territory sprawling over some eleven time zones? This means Moscow catching the attention of regional leaders thousands of miles away – and keeping them in reasonable line. Over the years a Firm Hand has been seen as the best method. […]
Craig Murray has an interesting post trying to make the case that receiving information extracted or suspected to be extracted via torture is the same as receiving child pornography. I have posted this comment which tries to look at the key dilemma: what is the best way for democracies to […]
The office of Speaker of the British House of Commons is a position laden with world-class Tradition and Authority. Alas we have the current occupant, Michael Martin. A man from humble origins who is just not up to it. Legend has it that on an official Speaker visit to Poland he and […]
