RFE/RL has many excellent pieces on the less settled parts of Europe and beyond. Here is a gloomy piece about the current trends in former Yugoslavia, arguing that with so many other problems going on elsewhere the ‘international community’ is not gripping Balkanic divisons which are reappearing busily all over […]
Here is an eloquent article in Standpoint about claims that back in 1950 a youthful Milan Kundera gave a statement to the communist regime which caused others opposed to it immense suffering. The article has prompted some revealing comments. Here is one asserting that ‘context is everything: … It is further […]
Rummaging through the Internet I hit upon this excellent claim made in the French media, dating back to 1810: This is the custom of the British Cabinet – to give their diplomatic missions to the most foolish and senseless persons the nation produces. The English diplomatic corps is the only […]
Remember the fuss about the oppressive and unworkable FCO rules on what former diplomats might or might not say in public? We now have new rules! And they are actually sensible. They put the emphasis on intelligent people using their Judgement: The FCO relies on former officials to exercise their […]
Here is a reasonable-sounding assessment by Jonathan Freedland of the early days of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy: That same official explained it to me like this yesterday: "The Bush administration hindered its own efforts by tying one hand behind its back. Diplomacy is a tool, but they viewed it […]
Yes. The FCO has taken no action to amend the absurd spelling error on its Promote a low carbon, high growth, global economy webpage. The FCO is still hard at work Proteccting Asia’s rain forest (sic). The page also invites readers to link to latest case studies on our work on […]
The Adam Smith Institute has invited Guido, John Redwood MP and Alex Barker to address an evening seminar on the theme Politics and the Blog. Be there. Or be square.
As if by magic following my previous post, John Redwood asks some questions: If the bankers who did the lending were greedy and wrong, weren’t the shareholders in the banks similarly guilty as they were happy to receive the dividends from all that excessive lending? Didn’t that include most people […]
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 […]
Should the USA and its Western allies talk to ‘moderate elements in the Taleban’? President Obama’s musing about this publicly necessarily has various effects. Above all, it rewards Afghanistan extremism and demoralises ‘normal’ people there who have been trying to build a normal life with our support. Why should they make the […]
