The UN Security Council’s resolution on ISIL (ISIS, Da’esh), adopted unanimously on 20 November, has received much less UK media attention and analysis than it deserves. In my view it has transformed the situation...
Jeremy Corbyn was unwise and wrong to denounce the chief of the defence staff, General Sir Nicholas Houghton, for pointing out that nuclear deterrence ceases to have any effect if the head of government...
Jeremy Corbyn has now answered at least two radio or television interviewers, who asked him whether as prime minister he would ever press the nuclear button, with the fatal word: No. This is surely...
According to today’s Guardian, the statesman and Nobel peace prize winner Martti Ahtisaari has revealed what looks like a spectacular failure in Washington, London and Paris to respond to a Russian proposal in 2012...
It takes an ingenious lawyer to devise a legal justification for the execution by RAF drone strike last week of a UK citizen in Syria suspected – but never tried or convicted – of plotting...
In case you have a vote for the Labour party leadership election and haven’t yet voted, here, in no particular order, is an objective check-list of twelve ideal characteristics and qualities for an effective,...
Things which everyone knows but which ain’t so: that in 2013 the House of Commons voted against UK participation in the bombing of Syria in response to Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against...
This is the final commercial for my recent book, What Diplomats Do: The Life and Work of Diplomats, published last year and available to UK readers at a substantial discount which (sadly) expires at...
The Greek settlement, or perhaps better the eurozone’s Diktat, is outrageous. It reflects such an intrusive, dictatorial, dirigiste, centralising mindset on the part of those in the control room of the EU (not just...
The political and economic scenes in Britain are warming up nicely as the general election, due on 6 May, approaches. The leaders of both the main parties are working hard to establish the issue...