While we are thinking about who ‘allows’ what, the British Government have announced that Dutch MP Geert Wilders will not be allowed to enter the UK, as his very presence will ‘threaten national security’. The public debate appears to be focusing on this man’s right to speak his mind. Not […]
Blush prettily as I do to link to it, here is the Independent: Despite reading it closely, I’m still not convinced of how on earth Charles Crawford is allowed to blog as he does. Which recalls this memorable exchange, when sardonic architecture student Howard Roark is being expelled for insisting […]
My article about Building Embassies from Scratch is in the latest DIPLOMAT magazine: New embassies do represent an unusual challenge. Cynical Treasury officials like wartime embassies (cheap) or even no embassies (free). Don’t modern communications allow all this old-fashioned representational work to be done from and between capitals? No. The […]
Another opportunity for FCO bloggers to write a lively Op-ed: A high-ranking diplomat at the Foreign Office has been arrested after allegations that he launched a foul-mouthed anti-Semitic tirade. Middle East expert Rowan Laxton, 47, was watching TV reports of the Israeli attack on Gaza as he used an exercise […]
A reader writes about FCO blogs: FCO bloggers try to keep to policy areas they have responsiblity for. Diverging from this has caused the odd frantic call from London to the offending blogger. There is nothing to say that staff cannot advance national interest behind closed doors AND engage in […]
As we all know, across its vast territory Russia has all sorts of energy resources. And, as energy gets scarcer, Russia therefore gets richer and can throw its weight around again, right? Not so fast. The problem with vast energy reserves is that it costs a vast amount to develop them. […]
There’s a lot of it about now. The FCO has a goodly bunch, albeit with tone of unrelenting ‘corporate’ cheeriness, eschewing anything controversial/awkward in policy or philosphical terms. When I was in Warsaw the FCO timidly experimented with some blogs for internal FCO consumption only, allowing some of us a […]
The new Obama administration has made a fine old mess of this one: When the vice president, the secretary of state and the national security adviser all say you have been tapped to be the next United States ambassador to Iraq, odds are it’s a done deal, right? Apparently not […]
The UK MP who is most frugal on his expenses is, says the BBC, Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering in Northamptonshire. Affable article. Over 1130 words long. Just one minor point. It does not say which political party he belongs to. The Conservatives, in case you were wondering. Nice work, BBC […]
Every year round comes Davos, where the Important gather to comfort each other and then tell us less important folk what they really think. The Davos Journals by NRO‘s Jay Nordlinger are neatly turned reports on the mood, style and substance of these grand deliberations. This is a good example […]
