Over at PunditWire my latest piece, this time on how to use subtle framing and reframing skills of the sort used by mediators to create a subtle bad smell around people and policies you don’t like, all the while pretending you’re being reasonable and objective: Framing is all around us […]
Have a look at this magnificent AJ interview from late 2011 with Jin Liqun, head of China’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. The whole thing is impressive for Jin Liqun’s steely logic and sense of effortless authority. But it moves into overdrive at 11.40 or so when he starts to talk about […]
Here is a towering example of modern American freewheeling public speaking. Bruce Sterling shares with us in a ramblingly insightful way all sorts of ideas and insights about technology and its impact on us. This sort of thing would shrivel and die if you attempted to write it down in advance. […]
Back in Belgrade in communist Yugoslavia in 1984 or thereabouts, the then Ambassador and an unusually smart Ist Sec Econ pored over a diplomatic despatch that sought to draw attention to the dismal state of the state’s finances. The basic problem was that Yugoslavia did not have Honest Money. Yes, […]
You have to hand it to George Soros. When he goes for it, he hits the target big. Look at this speech arguing that the introduction of Eurobonds is by far the best way to solve the Eurozone’s (and EU’s existential crisis). I myself have no idea what a Eurobond […]
My latest piece over at Punditwire recalls a fine speech by Teresa Potocka in honour of Lady Thatcher at the Conservative Friends of Poland in early 2010: Lady Thatcher, in those dark years of martial law you were a symbol of hope and freedom for the Polish people. I grew […]
So, there I was in Gdansk in August 2005 for some impressive ceremonies to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1980 August agreements that showed the Solidarity movement gathering strength to negotiate successfully with the Polish communist regime. The UK was represented by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who growled […]
Many years ago when I was at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy I had an American friend call Jim Wasserstrom, a lively quirky character. And he is continuing to be lively and quirky, to the point taking on the United Nations and its policies on people who reveal […]
My own meetings with Margaret Thatcher are described at the Commentator: My final substantive meeting with her came in 2009 at a small private dinner in London. She was frail but on lively form, making many religious references. There was a cheering consensus that Jesus had been ‘sound’ in his […]
I find myself taking a fleeting interest in the goings-on at UNESCO as the time comes round to choose a new Director-General. Never a dull moment there – it is an especially ‘politicised’ UN body. Try this punchy piece about the way the Obama Administration may be manoeuvring to get […]
