Iain Dale identifies the top ten qualities a ‘good’ Prime Minister needs: 1. Decisiveness2. Conviction3. Understanding the motivations of Middle England4. Being a good negotiator5. Being a good conciliator6. Having a good TV presence7. Being a good parliamentary performer8. Having a thick skin9. Being able to cut through civil service bullshit10. […]
Just say you vote for a politician who has campaigned on a plan to raise business taxes and so compel firms to lay off workers. Should not the workers who voted for that politician be the first ones to be fired? I mean, that’s fair isn’t it? And while you are at Poor […]
The extra quality the USA brings to politics as to everything else is Motivation. That sense of mobilising can-do energy backed by wit and clarity. Here is Arnold Schwarzenegger, in lively and effective form ("Obama needs some meat on his ideas"). Hard to imagine a similarly feisty speech by a UK politician; […]
Here is a neatly turned speech in Boston by the British Ambassador to the UN, Sir John Sawers, marking UN Day. He recalls how Artur Rubinstein defiantly played the Polish anthem back in 1945 to show his contempt for the exclusion of a democratic Poland at the establishment of the UN. And […]
Back from my Negotiations seminar with those perky young diplomats. If you can force X to do something, no need to negotiate. If you can persuade X to do something by your eloquence, ditto. But if those options fail, you have two choices. Negotiate. Or give up the whole idea […]
A curious article in the FT by John Gapper argues that the mainstream US media have moved to the Left to reflect the ‘national mood’. Surely it is more a determined attempt by pro-Democrat tendencies in these outlets to shift the national mood so that their candidate wins? The Gapper analysis […]
Obama is talking about ‘spreading the wealth around’. The deep problem with that idea is that it is not so easy to spread the energy, creativity, persistence, ambition and willingness to take risks and to make sacrifices which together combine to create the wealth in the first place. So there […]
This from Right Coast sums it all up: Thus I have tried to pay attention carefully as Obama and his many proxies have explained what his actual plans would be. These are much more comprehensible. With some gratitude I realize that all the talk of Hope and Change can be distilled […]
Back home after some busy days a-training some sassy young diplomats, straight out of the egg and buzzing with cheery optimism until I arrived. I also have been visiting an elderly friend in hospital. Beyond a certain age most of one’s friends and maybe even one’s close relatives have died. […]
Lord Ashdown and Richard Holbrooke have penned a long joint letter to the Guardian warning about the risks of the international community taking its eye off the Bosnia problem. They focus on what they see as the basic aim of Republika Srpska PM Milorad Dodik: His long-term policy seems clear: to place his […]
