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 [...]
Picture the scene. Night had fallen, it was snowing heavily, and an alpine pass beckoned. 'I'm not so sure this is a good idea, 'I said to my friend. 'Driving over the Alps in this weather. Perhaps we should find a hotel for tonight and try in the morning'. ‘Don’t be such a worrier, Rog’, [...]
So that's it. Another season finished. Agonisingly, we didn't make it into the play-offs, purely on the basis of goal difference. No-one can complain at the effort the team put in, but you can’t help thinking about what might have been. The football supporter's life is full of such moments. We start each season full [...]
Sometimes the modern world can feel pretty overwhelming. Perhaps it was ever so, but the intermingling of social media, streaming, 24 hour news media, commercialism and consumerism have pushed the volume up to sometimes ear-splitting levels and the colour palette to seldom less than garish. Where to find sense and meaning - and peace - [...]
