Lord Houghton’s lecture at Global Strategy Forum on Tuesday 28th January, ‘Some Thoughts On The ‘Biggest Review’ Of Our Defence, Security And Foreign Policy Since The End Of The Cold War’ was reported in The Times on Monday 3rd February.  To read it, click here.

Major General Jonathan Shaw’s lecture, Whitehall’s Strategic Deficit And Its Threat To Overseas Operations’ was reported on Richard Norton-Taylor and Nick Hopkins’ blog in the Guardian.  To read it, click this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/defence-and-security-blog/2013/mar/06/defence-security-strategy

Commenting on the IAEA report that Iran has carried out tests “relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device”,  Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP said that there was “no serious doubt” that Iran wants to have the capacity to build a bomb if they so chose, which would “totally destabilise the Middle East”. However, Sir Richard Dalton, former UK Ambassador to Iran, said that only “a decision by Iran itself” can prevent it acquiring a nuclear weapon and suggested a “pause” in sanctions and a comprehensive offer to Iran – including the threat of even stricter sanctions – to bring them to the negotiating table.  To listen again, follow this link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9635000/9635034.stm

Sir Malcolm was also quoted in an article in the Evening Standard, saying that a military strike on Iran’s clandestine nuclear facilities might be the least worst option: ‘I think it’s the last thing Obama wants to do, but at the very end of the day, if everything else was to fail and the prospect was not just of Iran with nuclear weapons, but that leading to all the Arab states also going nuclear, then the question of a military option – if it was feasible – might be the least bad option’.  To read the full article, follow this link:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24008032-rifkind-attack-on-iran-nuclear-facilities-could-be-best-option.doe.

Mark Sedwill’s lecture was reported in the press.  To read Richard Norton-Taylor’s article in the Guardian, click on or copy and paste the link below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/11/envoy-critique-afghanistan-campaign?newsfeed=true

Jonathan Rugman, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Channel 4 News, also posted an entry on his blog:

http://blogs.channel4.com/world-news-blog/afghanistan-rose-tinted-specs-come-off-at-last/18826

Sir Richard’s lecture, ‘Ten Years After 9/11: What Are the Priorities for the Intelligence Service in 21st Century Britain?’ was widely covered by the press.  To read the press coverage, click on the links below.

http://onespot.wsj.com/small-business/2011/07/05/28eb8/former-british-spy-chief-thinks-uk-shoul

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/05/britain-espionage-idUSL6E7I51V420110705

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/8618722/Britain-should-start-spying-on-Eurozone-neighbours-former-MI6-chief-says.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2011798/Ex-MI6-chief-Richard-Dearlove-UK-spy-neighbours-eurozone-crisis.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/05/al-qaida-decline-spy-chief

In his article ‘A Royal Salute to the Commonwealth’, Peter Oborne referenced Lord Lothian’s pamphlet, ‘Farewell to Drift’, published in October 2010: ‘There is also no reason why the Commonwealth should continue to be based in London, home of the Commonwealth Secretariat. Last year the Marquis of Lothian, a former Conservative Party chairman and shadow foreign secretary, made a radical proposal: “Britain should accept that centring the Commonwealth in London leaves it open to accusations of carrying the shades of empire. It should be re-based in India, which itself has the potential to become a powerful inner core of a living network of relations that cross continents and have unparalleled global reach. Lord Lothian’s suggestion opens up an alternative vision of a future British foreign policy. We would no longer be tied so closely into Washington and Brussels, two connections that have served us so badly over the past two decades. We could look instead to a wider world, and indeed a Commonwealth based in democratic Delhi could prove an important counterbalance to the stealthy rise of totalitarian China, as it seeks stealthily to build its regional influence in the Far East through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.”

To read the whole article, click this link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/canada/8612030/A-royal-salute-to-the-Commonwealth.html

Following the victory for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan in Sunday’s elections, GSF Advisory Board member and former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw MP writing in the Times argues the case for Turkey’s EU membership: ‘…Turkey is now the dominant actor in the region and increasingly influential on the world stage. The UK has been honourable and strategic in its support for Turkey. Not so France, Germany and others on the Continent who have effectively blocked Turkey’s EU negotiations….The one loser from these elections is the EU. At a time when it desperately needs strong allies to help to ensure a benign outcome to the Arab Spring, it is myopic in the extreme for its leaders to appear to be turning away from the strongest, richest and most democratic state in the wider Middle East.’  The full article can be accessed (subscription required) by cutting and pasting this link:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article3060935.ece#

GSF Advisory Board member, the Rt Hon Jack Straw MP, gave the The Whitehead Lecture: Special or Merely Close? Britain’s Relationship with the US in 2010 at Chatham House on Tuesday 7th December 2010. The transcript can be accessed by clicking on the link.

http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/events/view/-/id/1782/

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chair of the intelligence and security committee, says that most of what has been revealed by WikiLeaks will ‘irritate rather than alarm’ governments. But he says that leaders must be allowed ‘private and secret dialogue’, in order to resolve ‘some of the most difficult problems the world has known’. He points to the difference between ‘the public interest’ and ‘the public are interested’ and says that in the case of genuince secrets, real damage of a serious kind will be done.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/8169712/WikiLeaks-Do-they-have-a-right-to-privacy.html.

Click below to read GSF Advisory Board member Sir Malcolm Rifkind’s article in the Times, in which he considers the decision of the Nobel committee to give the peace prize so early to President Obama to be ‘perverse and premature’.

http:///www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6868761.ece.

Click on the link below to read Prince Hassan of Jordan’s article, published online in Prospect Magazine in January, in which he asks whether the creation of a temporary international agency dedicated to enforcing peace could be the solution to the stalemate between Israel and Gaza.

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?search_term=prince+hassan&id=10574.

Click on the link below to read Lord Howell’s letter, published in the FT on 19th December, on the need for America’s newly shaped foreign policy establishment to learn the art of partnership rather than leadership.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fddae1b6-cd6e-11dd-9905-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1.

GSF Advisory Board member, Sir Ming Campbell, wrote an comment piece for the Independent, entitled ‘Obama’s search for the golden age’, in which he analyses the recent Democratic Convention and questions what exactly underpins Barack Obama’s rhetoric of change. The full article can be read by clicking on the link below:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/menzies-campbell-obamas-search-for-the-golden-age-913241.html.

GSF Advisory Board member Sir Malcolm Rifkind wrote an comment piece for the Times, entitled ‘Tibet: try the Hong Kong solution’, in which he argues for the one country, two systems principle to be applied to China’s relationship with Tibet. The full article can be read by clicking on the link below:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3593475.ece.

Johan Eliasch spoke at the Brookings Institution on ‘Climate Change: the next Global Security Threat’ in his capacity as Gordon Brown’s special representative for deforestation and clean energy. For further details and the transcript of his address, click on the link:

http://www.brookings.edu/events/2008/0131_climate.aspx.

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, speaking to a GSF audience said the government was “very distressed and concerned” by the events in Pakistan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7078910.stm

Conservative Home, the one-stop-news-shop for all things Conservative in the UK asked Michael Ancram to pen a short piece on why talks should be openned with Hamas. The blogging that follows makes for entertaining reading. Click on the ‘Your Platform’ icon to find Michael’s article.

http://www.conservativehome.co.uk/

BBC coverage of Michael Ancram’s call on the Conservative Home website to engage with Hamas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6276992.stm

Dame Pauline Neville-Jones has been appointed by Conservative Party Leader David Cameron MP to the Shadow Cabinet, with special responsibility for security issues. Dame Pauline has been a member of the Forum’s Advisory Board since its inauguration in early 2006.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4606466.stm

On Monday 2nd July the Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague MP. To a packed audience he laid out Conservative Party policy towards the Middle East. A full copy of his speech can be downloaded from our website. The link below is that of the BBC.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6261820.stm.

On Wednesday 21st February the House of Lords was presented with the Prime Minister’s Statement on the troop draw-down in Iraq. The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos) read the Statement on behalf of the Government and Lord Howell of Guildford replied for the Opposition. We are indebted to Lord Howell for his reference to the Forum’s debate of 20th February ”UK Defence Strategy: can it still be delivered?’, delivered by General the Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank GCB LVO OBE – Former Chief of the Defence Staff. The reference can be found in Column 1077 at 3:50pm.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansrd/text/70221-0003.htm.

Michael Ancram, chairman of Global Strategy Forum and one of those who did the ground-work for the Northern Ireland peace agreement pointed out the inconsistency between the American pressure on the British to open talks on Northern Ireland in the 1990s and their position now. Like all the best letters to newspapers, it is short, and well worth reading.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/debate/letters/article1421132.ece.

Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent at the Daily Telegraph reported on the Forum’s Defence Lecture given by General the Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank on Tuesday 21st February 2007.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/21/niraq121.xml