EU-UK negotiations: normal rules?
4 October 2019
The British government has at virtually the last minute submitted to the EU a detailed proposal on a new withdrawal agreement Read more.
Foreign Office cleaners’ strike. Diplomacy begins at home
27 September 2019
For those of us who study embassies, consulates and foreign ministries it is easy to forget that they could not work well, if at all, without ‘support staff’. Read more.
Parliamentary democracy 11 – 0 Boris Johnson
24 September 2019
Today 11 justices of the UK Supreme Court unanimously declared the non-prime minister of the UK, Boris Johnson, to have unlawfully advised the Queen to suspend Parliament Read more.
Non-papers in Brexit negotiations
23 September 2019
On 19 September three ‘non-papers’ on the Irish backstop were submitted to the EU by the non-prime minister of Britain, Boris Johnson, Read more.
If at first you don’t succeed …
4 September 2019
lie, lie and lie again. This is the maxim that, as usual, guided Boris Johnson’s behaviour in the House of Commons last night. Read more.
Need a thesis topic? Security at British diplomatic posts
17 August 2019
Diplomatic security is an important but neglected subject. Read more.
EU negotiations with Johnson a waste of time
30 July 2019
Even were Johnson’s new Tory government to be serious about negotiating a new Brexit deal with the EU before 31 October – which anyone who cares to look can see it almost certainly isn’t – it would be a waste of the EU’s time. Read more.
Darroch resignation. Who appoints a new ambassador?
12 July 2019
British foreign secretary and Tory leadership hopeful, Jeremy Hunt, yesterday told Foreign Office staff that ‘the UK government alone will determine appointments based on our national interest alone.’ Read more.
Trump and Darroch
9 July 2019
All observers know that what the British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Kim Darroch, said about Donald Trump and his White House in secret, classified messages to the Foreign Office is true. Read more.
Petition on Russia and BREXIT
1 March 2019
It has long been suspected that Vladimir Putin’s government, in part via the agency of the Russian Embassy in London, gave covert support to the campaign that secured the narrow victory for the Brexiters in the June 2016 referendum in the UK. Read more.
British Diplomats on Brexit
14 February 2019
It’s always been blindingly obvious but it needed saying again, and has just been succinctly stated once more by more than 40 former, senior British ambassadors and high commissioners in a letter to Theresa May, Read more.
Q. Which London embassy needs 13 cultural attachés?
10 December 2018
Answer: The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. Why? Read more.
The Emirates, SIS – and Brexit
2 December 2018
Like many others, I heaved a sigh of relief when I learned that Matthew Hedges had been pardoned and allowed to return home. Read more.
The inevitability of a bad Brexit deal for Britain
24 November 2018
Predictably enough, the hard right-wing nationalists in Parliament are pounding their chests and claiming that Theresa May’s government could have got a much better deal on Brexit. Read more.
The Khashoggi affair and consular law
18 October 2018
Some points of law concerning this sickening and profoundly worrying case need clearing up. Read more.
Writing update
26 August 2018
I am putting the finishing touches to a very short book called The Diplomacy of Ancient Greece. Read more.
Diplomacy, Satire and the Victorians
11 August 2018
This is the new title under which DiploFoundation has re-launched my biography of E. C. Grenville-Murray on the ISSUU platform. Read more.
Donald Duck could have got Kim to Singapore
13 June 2018
Out of sheer despair, I have been silent for a long time on Trump’s new style of ‘diplomacy’, as well as on the dangerous clowning of Boris Johnson at Britain’s Foreign Office. Read more.
Intelligence officers in the present crisis between Russia and the West
5 April 2018
There is not a great deal I can add to what has already been written about this sorry business but, since I am working on a related project, it has pricked my interest. Read more.
Enter the Stupid Party, Exit Diplomacy
27 November 2017
John Stuart Mill called the nineteenth century Tory Party in England the ‘stupidest’ party but he would probably not have hesitated for long in abandoning this relativistic statement as too charitable to its modern, Brextremist variant. Read more.