In his recent cover story for The Spectator, the Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman talked about how, in the United States, China was beginning to take on the appearance of a new Cold War-style foe. Many Americans accuse China of stealing US jobs, of keeping the its currency undervalued, of exporting deflation by selling its products
President Obama’s return to Indonesia this week was remarkable, in part, for the limited attention it has garnered outside his childhood nation. You can’t walk through an airport bookshop without being inundated by bestsellers about China’s rise. India has always occupied a special part in British hearts. But Indonesia is different. There are few in
Nouri Maliki was last night appointed Iraqi prime minister after the country broke the world record for the slowest process of government formation. Eight months passed between the election and the formation, beating even previous Belgian records of procrastination. Hours after his appointment, however, members of al-Iraqiya, the main Sunni-backed alliance led by former Prime
David Cameron is now in Seoul for the first G-20 summit hosted by a non–G-7 member state. It will be the Prime Minister’s second G-20. But things have changed dramatically since he came to power and had to jet to Toronto for his multilateral baptism. Then the Prime Minister’s arguments for austerity measures were theoretical
The West Wing has an amazing hold over Fleet Street. The TV series has not only taught a generation of British reporters about US politics but even influenced the way that they see the workings of Westminster. Every time centre-right writers think David Cameron is seen as having made a mistake – mistreated his back-benchers,
The British government is 99.9999999 percent staffed by apolitical Civil Servants with the statistically irrelevant remainder being political appointees. The Sir Humphreys, rather than being pushed around, are very much in charge. Too much in charge. Ministers get only two Special Advisers – or SpAds – each who are placed away from the Minister’s office
For the first time since 1990, Burma went to the polls. Though the final results have not been released, most regard the election as a sham meant to cement military rule, with complex election rules put in place to exclude opposition candidates as well as interference from the junta in the campaign and a ban
The world is undergoing a permanent shift of power from West to East, with China being the biggest beneficiary and middling states (like Britain) likely to be the biggest losers. The government may, in the words of William Hague, reject any kind of strategic shrinkage. But if China’s economy continues to grow at even half
What has happened to Germany? Policy-makers and analysts have been pondering the question for the last few years. No longer happy to be the pro-European par excellence, Germany has become more assertive, more self-centred – in others words more normal. German scholar Ulrike Guerot has called the new Germany “post-Romantic”, ie more interest-based and less
I’m off to Brussels, capital of the superstate, home of the EUSSR, or whatever you might want to call it. It has made me re-engage with European issues for the first time in six months. If Europe is not dead as a political issue in Britain then it is at least firmly stored in a
Government allows some top-tier politicians to shine, while others lose the sheen they once had in opposition. So it has been with this Government. It has mostly been Lib Dems who have gleamed. Much can be said of Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, and Chris Huhne, but nobody will ever question the party’s ability to govern,
The Entente Cordial Redux has generated a lot of commentary, most of it ill-informed, some of it ridiculous. Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, in particular, has singled himself out to be a perpetuator of stereotypes with his reference to the duplicitous nature of the French. But many historians, like the otherwise brilliant Orlando Figes, have not
One of the biggest challenges facing the post-Iraq generation of foreign policy decision-makers, like William Hague and Hillary Clinton, is to balance the pursuit of overseas stability with promotion of the dynamic and sometimes de-stabilising forces that build countries’ long-term stability and make economic and political progress possible. This may sound like an academic question
The backlash that Barack Obama is now experiencing seemed almost impossible when the neophyte senator swept into the White House. It was, in fact, predicted by some. In 2007 when Barack Obama was but an ambitious Illinois senator, American defence expert Kori Shake penned an essay called the Coming Crisis of High Expectations. It was
Yesterday saw an outbreak of Yeminitis, with Westminster focused on Osama Bin Laden’s ancestral home after the foiled bomb plot. To CoffeeHouse readers, this will come as no surprise. Last year, the Spectator prophesised that Yemen would be the “sleeper issue” of 2010. And so it has proved. But what have successive British governments been
In this exchange from the “Yes, Minister” TV series Sir Humphrey welcomes the newly-appointed James Hacker to his department. ‘James Hacker: Who else is in this department? Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well briefly, Sir, I am the Permanent Under Secretary of State, known as the Permanent Secretary. Woolley here is your Principal Private Secretary, I too
“The Foreign and Commonwealth Office requests the honour of your company at a major address by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, The Rt Hon William Hague MP,’Britain’s Foreign Policy in a networked world’.” Thus reads the invitation from the Foreign Office. If emails could be gold-embossed, this one probably would be.
Most people probably greeted Liam Fox sacking of Sir Bill Jeffrey, alongside that of the Chief of Defence Staff in that Sunday Times interview with one word – who? The department’s Permanent Under-Secretary –- or PUS — is a pretty unassuming figure especially sat next to the be-medalled soldiers he works with. Few people outside
I’m sitting at the Ciragan Palace’s glass-filled halls on the banks of the Bosporus. I have joined the UN Security Council’s annual retreat, organised by the Turkish government, to give my view on what the UN did right and wrong in the Balkans from the break-up of Yugoslavia. The retreat is meant to continue the
Here is a question. Which politician said the following: “We’ve seen too that when women are empowered economically they are more likely to have a voice in the community and to be advocates for other women.” Or “Britain will be placing women at the heart of the whole of our agenda for international development”. Clare