London Olympics 2012: North Korea gaffe shows our diplomatic standards are...
Oh dear. The full Games have yet to start and we have made a rookie error over diplomatic protocol at a woman’s football match, presenting the South Korean flag to introduce the North Korean team. This...
View ArticleThanks to the Olympics, we know that Britain can do amazing things – on its...
My Twitterline soared to the occasion last night as the fevered London 2012 Closing Ceremony unfolded: Gold went to @govindajeggy Brian May has emptied an ENTIRE HOOVER BAG ON HIS HEAD. Silver to...
View ArticleJulian Assange and Ecuador: where we slipped up
The strong British position against the decision of the government of Ecuador to grant Julian Assange "asylum" has been undermined by the hullaballoo over the supposed threat made by HM Government to...
View ArticleJulian Assange and the dark art of diplomatic communication: it's not what...
Amidst all the kerfuffle surrounding the unhappy suggestion put to the Ecuadorean government by the British government that they might remove the Ecuador Embassy’s diplomatic status and extract...
View ArticleJulian Assange: where is Australia in all this?
In Washington the Organisation of American States has been pronouncing on the diplomatic stand-off between the British and the Ecuadoreans. Here is the full text, approved by acclamation! Its message:...
View ArticleToday's attacks will dent Obama's lead over Romney on security policy
The murder of an Ambassador or other senior diplomat is a rare occurrence. So rare that examples stay in the memory. In 1979, the year I joined the Foreign Office, Sir Richard Sykes was assassinated in...
View ArticleShock! Horror! UK not isolated in European budget row!
Scary headlines about the European Union and its budgets. What’s happening? The EU has annual budget rows. But the big row comes around every seven years, when the so-called Financial Framework for the...
View ArticleHoney, We’ve Shrunk the EU Budget!
Things to look out for if the European Union and/or David Cameron proclaim victory in the form of a new EU budget for the 2014-2020 period. Has the Budget really been cut? And what exactly is a cut?...
View ArticleMemo to No 10: On Europe, we're damned if we do, and we're damned if we don't
Memo to PS/No 10: Prime Minister’s EU Speech As requested, some quick thoughts on the strategic issues concerning the UK in the European Union as drafting for the Prime Minister’s speech proceeds. The...
View ArticleDavid Cameron's EU speech is a crafty piece of political positioning. Now,...
David Cameron’s speech is a crafty piece of work. The immediate, magnificent effect is to leave Labour and the Liberal Democrats gazing at the Conservative position on Europe like ostriches goggling at...
View ArticleThat EU Budget: the folly stops
By the standards of how these things traditionally are done, the emerging EU Budget deal really does represent a significant shift of emphasis and momentum. For the first time ever the EU Budget looks...
View ArticleObama's lofty, detached, dithering approach to foreign policy is coming back...
I know it’s tempting inside of Egypt to blame the United States or the West or some other outside actor for what’s gone wrong. We’ve been blamed by supporters of Morsi. We’ve been blamed by the other...
View ArticleSyria, chemical weapons, and the worst day in Western diplomatic history
Monday 9 September, 2013, was the worst day for US and wider Western diplomacy since records began. At the Foreign Office here in London we had the bizarre spectacle of US Secretary of State John Kerry...
View ArticleSyria: 'Assad must go!' said Obama. But Putin has carved him down to size,...
Leap back through time to this awesomely prescient piece written in early 2012, just after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for a change of leadership in Syria: Russia (like...
View ArticleIran has achieved a key success in its war of nerves
All negotiations boil down to a few existential issues: Security, Resources, Control, Reputation/Recognition and Time/Risk. Plus, depending on how the other aspects are tackled, Trust. Skilful...
View ArticlePutin's Russia is too weak to stop Ukraine joining Europe. But it will try
In 1994 the EU Ambassadors had a meeting in Moscow at which they opined on the then reforms under President Yeltsin. The Belgian Ambassador grumbled that Russia was just too big, too communist and too...
View ArticleMany South African black activists were Soviet-worshippers. That was tricky...
What did successive British governments do to end apartheid? To listen to the noises from the BBC and the Left parts of the chatterati the answer seems to be that Labour waged a decades-long heroic...
View ArticleIt will soon be technically impossible to be anonymous
President Obama last week announced a range of new measures to keep US government data-sweeps under tighter control and thereby (he hopes) rebuild trust in America’s electronic intelligence-gathering...
View ArticleKiev protests: frustrated Ukraine is caught between Russian brutality and EU...
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 famously warned the nation about the dangers of Czechoslovakia rejecting Herr Hitler’s territorial demands: How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we...
View ArticleUkraine, Vladimir Putin and the new face of Europe
After the fighting, a further struggle to shape Ukraine’s national identity could well pit east against west The ghoulishly violent confrontations on the streets of Kiev force to the top of the...
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