According to official Russian sources, the Ukrainians are either killing their own people or staging highly realistic scenes of mass murder, with the sole aim of discrediting Russia’s invading forces. Of course, nobody in their right mind, except perhaps the most dyed-in-the-wool ideologue or craven fellow traveller, believes any of this. Applying David Hume’s test [...]
Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine has untold impact on countless lives and on the future security and stability of human civilisation. What to say? Let's start with the nature of decision-making. Much has been made of Putin's shift from cool-headed strategist to Napoleonic visionary, and I confess that I saw nothing in the evolution [...]
It is, of course, the season to be jolly, but also when we all look back over the year just gone, and think ahead to what might just be. The media are awash with such reflections and speculations, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I add some random thoughts of my own. The backdrop [...]
Every so often in a career, you encounter someone who makes a lasting impression, who shapes the way you think and who you feel you would like to emulate. For me, Sir John Chilcot was just such a man. As the MOD’s Director Chilcot - possibly the only role in Whitehall named after an individual [...]
Many years ago, I was talking with an Afghan who had lived through the country's civil war. After he had described the horrendous privations and dangers he and his family had experienced, he paused. 'Don't ever leave us like that again', he said. And that, horrifically, is exactly what is happening. Not everything since the [...]
I’ve been meaning for some time to take the three blogs on leadership I did a while ago and put them together into one longer blog addressing the question, what makes a good leader? So here it is. I’m going to start with a slightly controversial point: not everyone in a leadership position is actually [...]
21 June is World Humanist Day. So I thought it worth posting a few thoughts about what it means, for me, to be a humanist. First, a bit of definition. A humanist is someone who believes that the Universe is natural, not supernatural, and looks to reason and science to explain it; that it's a [...]
I’ve heard Leave-voters say that, after a period of adjustment, Brexit Britain will end up little different to the UK that previously enjoyed EU membership. I guess they mean in economic terms: we'll still be a rich, G7 nation, just not a member of the EU's structures nor a participant in its processes. Hmm…possibly. It [...]
Hardly a day goes by without me reading a story about some conspiracy theory or other and asking myself whether we might finally have reached 'peak stupid'. Of course stupidity is nothing new in human society, history (I would contend) essentially being a succession of stupid decisions punctuated by moments of getting things right. But [...]
As we all now know, Dominic Cummings’ evidence to Parliament yesterday was something of a bombshell - an account of a political leadership beset by ill-preparedness, detachment and complacency. Ill-equipped to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. Perhaps the best single word to describe the Johnson administration’s performance throughout is ‘hapless’. Not stated explicitly [...]
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