What do you think?
-
Join our mailing list
What this site has written about recently
accountability - borders - Britain and the EU - Britain and the euro - coalition government - Conservatives - death penalty - democracy - demos - economic policy - electoral reform - euro - European foreign policy - European Parliament - eurosceptics - eurozone governance - financial crisis - fiscal compact treaty - Germany - global parliamentary assembly - Greece - history - House of Lords - human rights - IMF - Ireland - Labour party - languages - Libya - multi-level democracy - national identity - national sovereignty - nature of the EU - political parties - referendum on Europe - rule of law - Scotland - single market - social Europe - sovereign debt - subsidiarity - Switzerland - tax - tax havens - transport policy-
-
Latest Articles in 'World'
- 13 June 2012 5.30 for 6.00 pm – 8.00pm, followed by a reception National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place London SW1A 2HE Throughout this year, the Federal Trust, the Konrad Adenauer...
- The next head of the World Bank - 05/03/2012The World Bank needs a new manager. Robert Zoellick is leaving, so the search is on for a replacement. Tradition has it that the role is always filled by an...
- States or citizens – the flag reveals all - 29/12/2011I wrote on this blog recently of the United Nations as having the weakness that it represents only states and not peoples. Here is an example of the consequences of...
Latest Blog Entries
- How the world turns - 20/05/2012It is not only the world of politics that is turned upside down by the European banking crisis and the ineffectual way in which political leaders are dealing with it. ...
- Authentic euroscepticism - 20/05/2012A very interesting article in the Daily Telegraph last Friday by Jeremy Warner (read it here) sums up the eurosceptic dilemma and reveals the perverse nature of the way they...
- Overwhelming - 18/05/2012This blog has described before the difficulties associated with Greek departure from the eurozone. It would reduce the Greeks to a cash or even barter economy for a while, and...
Federal Union on Twitter
- Twitter is loading...
Iraq Archive
-
Reflections on the revolution in Iraq
Posted on 25/03/2008 | No CommentsIt is now five years since the start of the war in Iraq, five years in which the toll in money, in lives and in so much else has mounted continually. The cost of the war has turned out to be truly staggering. Thinking about... -
A thought experiment on Iraq
Posted on 21/01/2007 | 1 CommentAmid 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 approach the question from the other direction: imagine the claim was that there were no... -
Blair at war
Posted on 18/01/2007 | No CommentsTony 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 operational and not really of interest here, but his words on the purpose of the... -
The death of Saddam Hussein
Posted on 05/01/2007 | 1 CommentI 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 Michael Hammer of the One World Trust (read his analysis here). I am more interested... -
Fair to Blair
Posted on 19/12/2006 | 1 CommentAn 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 Director Victor Bulmer-Thomas, pulls no punches in setting out Blair’s achievements and failures. It makes... -
Iraq: staying or going
Posted on 13/12/2006 | No CommentsThe 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 neo-cons (using the term, as Alberto Majocchi insists, in its English meaning rather than in... -
When will they ever learn?
Posted on 26/11/2006 | No CommentsBy Richard Laming Published in The Observer, 26 November 2006 There is a closer south east Asian parallel than Vietnam for the unfolding disaster in Iraq. (‘Time for your Vietnam history lesson, George’, Comment, last week). Then, as now, an American invasion destroyed a country’s state infrastructure... -
Suits you
Posted on 15/11/2006 | No CommentsBritain is no longer a sovereign state: it’s official. Summoned to give evidence to the United States Congress on the progress of the war in Iraq, Tony Blair jumps to attention. A video link is set up so that he can explain his thinking and... -
Blair and the Middle East
Posted on 02/08/2006 | No CommentsThe analysis of the Middle East crisis set out in Tony Blair’s speech in Los Angeles seems to me to be confused, distracted, even almost deranged. Read the speech here, and see for yourself. I will substantiate my views, of course, but first things first.... -
Morality in foreign policy
Posted on 31/07/2006 | 1 CommentAmid all the debate about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the consequences, civilian and political, that have followed, I was prompted to have another look at an old article by Sir Samuel Brittan, “Morality and foreign policy”, written shortly after the disaster at Suez....
Loading ...
PDF 
