Martin Kettle in the Guardian on Labour’s horrible byelection loss in Glasgow yesterday: Almost no Labour MP, including Brown, is now safe. Glasgow East was Labour’s 25th safest seat in the UK and its third safest in Scotland. The seat had been Labour since the 1920s. If the 22.5% swing […]
My new Total Politics piece is out, full of Helpful Tips about how a new Minister should start to run a government Department. It’s quick to register and you can then see it on the E-zine. More in the pipeline for issues 3 and 4.
Under the UK’s Parliamentary system if an MP dies or steps down during a Parliamentary term a new election in his/her constituency takes place to fill the gap – no ‘appointing’ of new MPs as happens in countries with a party list system. This of course compels the political parties to stay […]
Too much Karadzic can be wearing, but the pieces at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on the man and his arrest are excellent, especially this one: In the end, Karadzic miscalculated. His dream of uniting all Serbs in a single state failed, and now they are scattered across five independent countries. His […]
Chandler Rosenberger at National Review Online takes a big picture look at US Balkan policy over the past decade and more. I might disagree with him at various points. He offers a rather US-centric view. But he does bring out well that while thematic, sustained and firm approaches to dealing with […]
See the words of wisdom of Radovan Karadzic aka Dr Dabic – at his site! (The Ever Increasing Need for Alternative Viewpoints in the Modern World) Try this one: You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in […]
A comment by me adding some operational background on international attempts to arrest Karadzic is up at the Independent’s Open House.
The steady insight of Lord Owen, with the deafening noise emitted by Simon Jenkins. Good piece in the Independent too. But they spoil it by adding a list of War criminals still at large. These people are not war criminals. They are war crimes suspects or indictees, unless and until they […]
News that the Arabic word for God has been found miraculously enscribed on a piece of meat in Nigeria alas does not impress me. When I was in Serbia the erudite paper Twilight Zone carried a picture of the image of Milosevic which had been found on a piece of […]
When Milosevic was abruptly transferred to the Hague Tribunal in June 2001 I dusted off my barristerial wig and sent a lively telegram to London from Belgrade on the theme "Is Milosevic Innocent?". My point was that linking Milosevic to the calamitous events in Bosnia and other non-Serbia parts of former Yugoslavia […]
