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Adrian Hamilton: Cameron, Europe and pure waffle

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Is Europe David Cameron's Clause IV moment – the point at which he faces down his own party and, using the prospect of power, simply overrides their most deep-seated prejudices? It would be wonderful to think so. It might even make a man out of the putative Prime Minister, who still appears a being in progress, trying to find not just power but what he really believes in.

Adrian Hamilton: Neither of the main parties has a true policy on Europe

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

It's a fair bet that the European embassies across London have been deluged recently with cables from their foreign ministries demanding to know just where British policy is headed. Are they to take seriously David Miliband's dramatic declaration of faith in the European Union as the repository of Britain's attentions and ambitions and what are they to make of the Conservative Party's constant anti-European rhetoric and its promise to keep bashing away even if the Lisbon treaty is signed?

Adrian Hamilton: Why he might like to take his leave of Labour

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Whatever his intentions, David Miliband is certainly putting himself about these days.

Adrian Hamilton: This redefines art, but not in a good way

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

There are two simple rules of public patronage of the arts. One is that, if you do it for a social or political purpose, it will fail. And the second is that if you hand over the actual commissioning to the Arts Council it will produce the very worst art.

Adrian Hamilton: Welcome to another false election

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The young Tunisian was clear in his view. "No, I'm not going to vote this Sunday," he said. "What's the point? We all know what the result will be. In fact it would be the same result if nobody at all went to vote," he added.

Adrian Hamilton: Peace isn't what Obama is achieving

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

President Obama should never have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (as he himself acknowledges) not because it's too early but because it's precisely the wrong moment to do it.

Adrian Hamilton: Obama is showing us how to live without our comfort blanket

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It's a comment on the quality of public debate, at least so far as foreign affairs are concerned, that politicians from every party want to claim President Obama as one of their own but no one seem to understand what he is actually doing or what the effect will be on Britain.

Adrian Hamilton: Rhetoric against Iran must be cooled for sake of the Middle East

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Sanctions have achieved nothing with Burma and should be replaced by dialogue, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said at the start of this week. Sanctions are essential and should be increased on Iran, said President Obama at the end of the week in which it was revealed that the country had established a secret additional site for enriching uranium.

Adrian Hamilton: How did we ever think greed was good?

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Greed is no longer good. It's now considered really bad. And it isn't just the Archbishop of Canterbury saying so. The leaders meeting at the G20 this weekend in Pittsburgh will declare their determination to clamp down on it. Politicians of all hues have said they revile it. The media have leapt onto their moral high horse to denounce it. Only the bankers seem oblivious of the whirlwind they have loosed about them.

Adrian Hamilton: If it is European leadership you want, don't start here

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It doesn't really matter how many grand speeches European leaders make about democracy, the actions of the EU will always gainsay them. Yesterday's vote by the European Parliament to re-appoint the Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, for a further five years is a case in point.

Adrian Hamilton: Sorry, but the recession is not over

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The recession is over. We have been told so by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and a succession of bank economists. Only it doesn't feel that way to most people in the country, suffering from cost cutting in their jobs and uncertainty in their outlook.

Adrian Hamilton: Curbing bonuses won't solve anything

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Frolicking in the margins is the phrase invented by that wise old bird, the late Harold Lever, to describe the tendency of politicians, particularly on economic matters, to seize on the inessential and make hay with it. And that, I fear, is exactly what is happening with the current rumpus over bank bonuses.

Adrian Hamilton: Let's not despair of democracy

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The joke circulating Afghanistan is that the election results have now been declared and that Ahmadinejad has won with 42 million votes. The parallel is apposite. Even as the first results are dripped out in Kabul, they have been declared a fraud by the leading opposition candidate. Reports, and evidence, of malpractice is widespread. As a means of establishing consensus through the country and setting the scene for stable government, the election, just as in Iran, has manifestly failed.

Adrian Hamilton: Two-party politics is doing us no good

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Every political leader in Britain starts by saying they're going to move away from Punch and Judy politics. Gordon Brown did it when he became Prime Minister, going as far as trying to create a ministry of all the talents, regardless of party. David Cameron made a great virtue of his wish to be consensual wherever possible when he became leader of the opposition. And we all know what happened to that promise. At the first whiff of an election, we're back to the slanging matches with a real vengeance.

Adrian Hamilton: Sanctions aren't going to bust Burma

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Gordon Brown says that he is "saddened and angry" at the Burmese court's decision to keep Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for a further 18 months.

Adrian Hamilton: Why do we feel we must turn Chekhov into Noel Coward?

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

No one can say that the British are not international in their theatrical outlook. The place is bursting with foreign plays – from Jean Racine (Phèdre) through Henrik Ibsen (A Doll's House) and Anton Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) to the contemporary playwrights showcased at London's Gate, and other fringe theatres.

Adrian Hamilton: Miliband's failure as Foreign Secretary

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Is David Miliband the most lightweight Foreign Secretary since the War? Admittedly there's strong competition for the post. From Jack Straw backwards, the history of British post-war politics has been peppered with foreign secretaries who've loved the travel and prancing about at summits but lacked the grasp of foreign circumstances and British interests to do an effective job.

Adrian Hamilton: The bitter politics of debt reduction

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Pre-election fever certainly sharpens the political debate. The prospect of power and the hope of a change in it does wonders for the appetite for debate. It also, more regrettably, narrows the terms of argument, nowhere more so than in the area that matters most - the recession and what do about it. Just as the Afghan question has been reduced to an argy-bargy over helicopters and who's to blame for the lack of them, so the economic debate has been reduced to a slanging match over how much needs to be cut from public expenditure and who is being more honest in saying so.

Adrian Hamilton: If terror is the problem, we won't solve it in Afghanistan

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

So here we go again, in a war which half the population does not believe in, in which we are committing ourselves ever more deeply at the behest of the US and over which politicians display no real sense of purpose.

Adrian Hamilton: Why China's President left the G8

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It would be hard to exaggerate the symbolism, or the embarassment, of the Chinese President Hu Jintao having to rush away from the G8 summit in Italy to cope with the outbreak of violence from the Uighur people back home. This was after all the meeting of the world's Big Boys to which China had been invited as the coming power, a moment when it could exert its new-found influence in the discussions on trade, recession and the environment, while the riots which were forcing Hu Jintao's return had been presented as a provincial disturbance which the Chinese authorities had brought quickly under control.

Adrian Hamilton: How can Iranians mend their broken Islamic Republic?

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, ought to be pleased with Iran. There is no one else left in the world who would categorise Britain as uniquely evil or threatening, let alone important enough to go for full-scale diplomatic confrontation. If only we did have the power or means to destabilise other countries, as we have been accused of. But, on the whole, we huff and we puff, as we have over Georgia, Zimbabwe and Burma, and no one takes a blind bit of notice, regarding us as a power from the past whose only role has been as a "loyal ally" of the US.

Adrian Hamilton: Give me excess of it? No thanks

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

I never thought to say it, but maybe there is too much Shakespeare on the stage at the moment.

Adrian Hamilton: We can support the protests – but we must not interfere

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

So what does the outside world do about the democratic outbursts in Iran? If we are true to our own principles, of course, we should come out in favour of the reformers. Free speech, liberty of assembly, votes for all are what we believe in. It is only patronising to hold back on expressing our support on the grounds that it is imposing our values on others and that other countries have different cultures.

Adrian Hamilton: Power in Iran - a labyrinthine system

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The regime in Iran is now desperately – and so far uncertainly – playing for time while it tries to work out just what is happening in the country and the forces that are now engulfing it. The Council of Guardians has agreed to a recount of the disputed results. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was seen off for the day to a summit in Russia. Talks have been opened up with the main opposition leaders. The foreign press has been effectively confined to barracks. The authorities have warned against demonstrations but appear to have held back from trying to suppress them by force.

Adrian Hamilton: This exercise won't even ask the hard questions

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The invasion of Iraq, as Tony Blair now accepts in private, is the great cloud that lours over his premiership and the New Labour Government, despite every effort to push it into the margins of history. It was the most divisive issue of a generation, and perhaps more, which could find no resolution either in the regimented debates of Parliament or two successive inquiries, by Lord Hutton into the death of Dr David Kelly and by Lord Butler into the use of intelligence.