Parliamentary democracy
I was at a King’s College London European Society debate this evening on the future of the European Union. (Read my introductory remarks here.) I lost my temper, almost, at […]
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Representing Scotland
A marvellous report on the BBC today that the Scottish Executive is being sidelined in the making of UK policy at European level. (Read the report here.) Of course, such
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A thought experiment on Iraq
Amid all the debate about what the British government did and did not know about Iraqi WMD in the run-up to war in Iraq, a thought occurs to me. Let’s
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Blair at war
Tony Blair’s speech on the role of the UK armed forces last week deserves some attention on this blog. (Read the speech here.) A lot of what he said was
Ségo vs Sarko
It is the tradition at this time of year for the newspapers to be full of predictions for the year ahead. This blog refuses to follow suit, partly because it’s
The death of Saddam Hussein
I am not going to say anything about the death penalty in the case of Saddam Hussein – plenty of other people have already done so, and no-one better than
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Mortgaged to the Yanks
A documentary on BBC4 last night about the debt that Britain racked up after the second world war borrowing money from the Americans. The presenter was Sir Christopher Meyer, former
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An argument against pacifism
I wrote a few posts ago about a talk by Mark Kurlansky, author of “Nonviolence: the history of a dangerous idea”. I’ve now read the book. I wasn’t very impressed
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Fair to Blair
An epitaph for the Blair era was published today by Chatham House, the respected and independent foreign policy think tank. “Blair’s foreign policy and its possible successor(s)”, written by outgoing
Iraq: staying or going
The report from the Iraq Study Group that was published last week (read it here) bookends a rather inglorious period in American foreign policy. The era of policy-making by the
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