Israel’s ‘accidental’ attacks on UNIFIL
13 Oct. 2024 The IDF’s current attacks on UNIFIL positions in southern Lebanon should come as no surprise. It is evidence of Israel’s long standing hostility to the UN itself.
October 13, 2024
UN Pact for the Future versus the Usual Suspects
2 October, 2024. Security Council reform was one of the subjects dealt with in the UN’s ‘Pact for the Future’ that was comfortably adopted by consensus in the General Assembly on 22 September 2024. The Pact had been promoted by the Organization’s leadership, nurtured by diplomacy ‘facilitated’ by Germany and Namibia, and had easily overcome last-minute Russian opposition. Even one of the usual suspects happy to stand to attention when Moscow snaps its fingers – or at least adopt a posture of friendly neutrality – misbehaved.
August 30, 2024
Elon Musk: Public Enemy No. 1
30 August 2024 Elon Musk, the Trump-supporting mega-rich ‘free speech absolutist’ (except when it’s his authoritarian friends who are asking), has been neatly taken down by the estimable Robert Reich. In this piece in The Guardian, he also lists 6 ways in which the ‘unaccountable political power’ produced by Musk’s enormous wealth can be [...]
July 10, 2024
Lest we forget: The UN Charter
10 July, 2024 At this particularly dangerous juncture in international relations, it is worth re-emphasising the condemnation of aggression by the Charter of the United Nations, in force since 24 October 1945 and to which virtually all states have signed up (the Holy See and Palestine are represented by permanent observer missions).This is why I have just made another link to it via the UN logo now placed at the top of the right-hand sidebar of this website.
February 28, 2024
A collective noun for diplomats
28 February 2024. There is no collective noun for diplomats in common usage, although some candidates for the title have surfaced over the years. Here I note these, consider some other possibilities and come to no serious conclusion.
The embassy that planned 13 toilets underground
11 February, 2024. In 2015 the Russian Embassy in the Republic of Ireland secured local government approval to quadruple its footprint. However, on 4 March 2020, without publicity, the central government in Dublin overrode this decision and gutted its plans. What were they and why was this action taken?
January 31, 2024
The diplomatic consequences of Mrs Sacoolas
2 February 2024. In the years after the incident in 2019 in which the wife of an intel officer on a US Embassy annex in central England killed a British motorcyclist by careless driving, I posted three blogs on its diplomatic consequences. This one distils their essence and adds more considered reflections.
New London embassy for China?
27 January, 2024 China’s plans to build a much larger embassy in London on the site of the old Royal Mint Court near Tower Bridge appear to have been abandoned. Why did this happen and what lessons can be learned from the experience?
December 16, 2023
‘COP28’? Names matter
16 December, 2023. Why ‘COP28’ is a bad brand name and what might replace it.
The English Job: Understanding Iran and Why It Distrusts Britain
Straw, Jack: The English Job: Understanding Iran and why it distrusts Britain (Biteback, 2019), pp. 390, incl. index, ISBN 978-1-78590-399-1 It was only by chance that I stumbled on this book, partly because from a marketing point of view the title is perfectly useless, and it’s hard to understand why the publisher agreed to [...]
November 23, 2023
Gaza: Turkish mediation?
23 November 2023. The reasons for supposing that Turkey might emerge in pole position to mediate an end to the Israel-Hamas war should the opportunity ever arise.
Gaza: humanitarian pause or ceasefire?
17 November, 2023. A humanitarian pause is the answer. Here's why.
August 10, 2023
China’s embassy in Ukraine
10 August 2023 Considerable attention has been focused on China’s participation in the Saudi-hosted talks at national security adviser level on Ukraine in Jedda over the weekend 5-6 August 2023, while Russia was not invited.
July 23, 2023
‘Agri-food-and drink attachés’ for endangered seats
23 July 2023 The crisply styled Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has rediscovered and, in the modern way of things, rebranded the agricultural attaché. First installed in diplomatic missions after the First World War, not least those of the United States, this officer has re-appeared in some British missions abroad [...]
Email crash
20 July 2023 My old Virgin Media email account has crashed yet again, so - like many others - I have given up on it. Anyone wishing to reach me who has not received a change of address message can do so via the CONTACT form, at the right-hand end of the top horizontal [...]
Fleetwood Mac, ‘Perfect’ surprise
12 July 2023 About a week ago my friend and close neighbour, John Sandford-Smith, turned up at my door. In one hand he held a large tool I had lent him some time ago (he had forgotten I had told him I no longer needed it) and in the other [...]
February 15, 2023
New START Treaty on embassy life support
February 15 2023 It is a defining feature of the permanent embassy that – in contrast to the special mission – it has general responsibilities, and these might cover almost any subject. Although I’m guessing, a recent and extremely important case in point appears to be the role of the [...]
November 29, 2022
Corrupt honorary consuls exposed
28 November 2022 It has long been suspected that governments riddled with corruption have allowed this reflex to extend – for a fee – to appointing rogues of all sorts to represent them as ‘honorary consuls’ in foreign states that permit them, as the vast majority do.
March 3, 2022
How your country voted in UN debates on Ukraine
3 March 2022 Check how your country voted in the UN debates on Ukraine in the last few days, or found that, regrettably, its permanant representative had pressing engagements elsewhere and failed to vote altogether.
January 29, 2022
Boris Johnson: Tottering Tsar of Londongrad
29 January 2022 Why has Boris Johnson always winked at the huge amount of dirty Russian money pouring into London while publicly parading his anti-Putin views?