1 December, 2020
Recent official revelations about the ‘special arrangements’ governing the diplomatic status of the US intelligence hub at the Croughton airbase in the English Midlands, which were provoked by the Sacoolas affair, raise important questions. Read more.
5 November 2020
The American scholar-diplomat, Laurence E. Pope, died on 31 October 2020. Read more.
12 September 2020
The moral and political decay of Boris Johnson’s government has now marked a new low. It has been forced to admit publicly that it is willing to break an important international agreement signed and ratified less than a year earlier. The price of this is already significant and, unless it is stopped, will become much heavier. Read more.
4 September 2020
‘The danger is now clear: Trump is destroying democracy in broad daylight.’ Such is the heading of Jonathan Freedland’s column in The Guardian today. Few writers could have summed up this frightening threat with more eloquence and authority. I urge all visitors to this site to read this article.
At very low cost, the US election campaign can be followed in detail via the digital edition of The New York Times. Students, I believe, can get an even lower rate than the one I am paying. Visit this page.
2 September 2020
First it was the Foreign Office (FO), then it evolved into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and today it becomes – as foreshadowed by Boris Johnson on 16 June – Britain’s ‘super-department for international affairs’, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Was this a good idea? Read more.
29 July 2020
Over the last three and a half years the Trump White House has steadily inflicted serious damage on the US Department of State. Read more.
21 July 2020
After nine months since it was cleared for publication by the British Intelligence Community (IC) but then withheld by Boris Johnson’s government, the Russia Report has finally been released. Read more.
7 July 2020
On 2 July 2020 I received an email from Razvan Constantinescu, the energetic Romanian Honorary-Consul General for the south-west of England based in Bristol and president of the Bristol Consular Corps. This told me how the Covid 19 pandemic first revolutionised the nature of his work load, and then reduced it to a ‘walk in the park’. Read more.
14 June 2020
I am a keen gardener, and during the lockdown I had the great good fortune to be allowed by our neighbour to take over the care of her very large, tree-lined, and blissfully quiet garden. The weather was also unusually good, so I spent on average 6 hours a day working in it through late March, April and May. I could have wished for nothing more. Read more.
12 June 2020
The future relationship negotiations between Britain and the EU, which commenced on 3 March 2020, teach many lessons in the art of negotiation. Among these are the obvious value of certain kinds of deadline and the less obvious value of publicly announcing ‘red lines’ before talks start. For present purposes I shall concentrate on what they reveal about video-conferencing and whether it has all been for show. Read more.
15 May, 2020
An influential article of 2014 noted that health attachés were appointed shortly after the Second World War and were thereafter assigned by ‘a growing number of countries … to work in embassies in countries of strategic importance.’ Is this true? If not, why not? And does it matter anyway? Read more.
14 March 2020
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been announced that the second round of face-to-face talks on the UK’s new relationship with the EU, due to take place in London next week with the arrival of an EU delegation of over 100 trade experts, has been cancelled. Video-conferencing has been officially suggested as a possible alternative. Read more.
1 February 2020
Last night, 31 January, the UK’s last night as a member of the European Union, I ignored the evening news channels for the first time for many years. Read more.
27 January 2020
The US Department of State has announced its conclusion, without even a whiff of supporting argument, that requiring Anne Sacoolas to return to the UK to face a criminal charge would set a precedent that would weaken diplomatic law. This is the opposite of the truth. Read more.
17 January 2020
Recent publicity about the hostile reaction in South Korea to Harry Harris, appointed as US ambassador at Seoul by Donald Trump in June 2018, serves to underline an important point: Read more.
8 January 2020
Probably not; or, if it does, only with further passages blacked out. Read more.
7 December 2019
It was just a matter of time before a senior British diplomat got so sick of representing the UK government of Boris Johnson that she resigned. Read more.
2 November 2019
A report on Russian meddling in British democracy by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee is being suppressed by the Johnson government. Read more.
24 October 2019
A recent development in Brexit has provided interesting evidence of the role of ambassadors in clarifying their governments’ intentions, however contradictory they might be. Read more.
12 October 2019
When the abuse of diplomatic immunity is alleged to have occurred it usually refers to diplomatic officers taking advantage of their special status Read more.
