The last decade has witnessed a soft-power arms race, based on leveraging acquisition while reducing attribution. In other words, buying up assets while lessening or even obscuring the structures and obligations of ownership. What’s interesting is how culture and sport have figured largely in this trend, alongside civil and military technology and strategic assets.
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Boris Johnson’s announcement on 16 June that he was merging the UK’s diplomatic and development ministries, the FCO and DFID, into a new ‘super-department’, the FCDO, provoked predictably strong reactions. Three former Prime Ministers condemned it as a retrograde step, development charities were unusually outspoken in their opposition, and academics expressed concern. On the other […]
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In the Groundhoggery of the Brexit process, we find ourselves once more at the stage of discussing whether what’s come before matters or not. More specifically, there is an argument made in some quarters that since the Political Declaration isn’t legally-binding, it doesn’t impose any limits on the current Future Relationship negotiations. This argument often […]
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So it turns out that one of the guiding principles of my research is something that has a name and is a thing [insert your views on being able to build your own degree programme here]. Chesterton’s Fence is simply the notion that if you find things to be in a way that doesn’t make […]
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I’ve been in several PhD vivas these past weeks, as examiner and supervisor, and there’s been a common thread to the discussions, namely that you’ll never get the opportunity again to spend so long with a subject in so much detail. Of course, that’s because other people haven’t chosen to study Brexit negotiations. This week’s […]
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The other week, I wrote that probably the most useful thing for the Prime Minister would be a lengthy prolongation of lockdown, to provide more cover for any decision on extending transition. Well, we now have that cover, although the only serious explanation appears to be a function of Johnson’s extreme caution about loosening the […]
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