"...[P]oliticians are able to reach senior positions without the experience of having ever negotiated a contract in the private sector. Defence procurement is even harder to manage than other government procurement, as the nature of the market is such that few buyers — governments — buy from few defence firms, which means that competition is not as fierce as in other markets. This is combined with defence inflation which always far exceeds civilian inflation...."

"Perhaps the answer to these problems will involve accepting that the NHS should be what Nye Bevan set it up to be: a safety net to ensure that nobody goes without healthcare, not the only provider of healthcare for everybody. We should see the rich taking private insurance as a socially useful saving of public resources....We should also look beyond our borders at what other systems do well, and how best to implement them alongside the NHS here."

"...public attitudes are not ready for this. In Scotland especially, taking private insurance is seen as some kind of right-wing act, a lack of faith in our national healthcare system. That must change. We should see the option of taking private insurance as a socially useful saving of public resources."

"President Obama, in spelling out the new U.S. strategy on Afghanistan this month, said that the United States will countenance dialogue with some elements of the Taliban....This is not as startling as it might seem, and it is vital to understand why it is so important. First, many Taliban fighters are simply peripheral Taliban militants. They joined the Taliban as a pragmatic opportunity for advancement in a country where most power comes from conservative Islam or guns. They typically fight close to the village where they live and grew up, and so lack the mobility of a true militia."

"As we once again become accustomed to seeing his [Karadzic's] face in the news and hearing updates on his case at the UN Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, many will be tempted to see the crimes of which he is accused as just more violence from a violent region, and dismiss the whole Bosnian war as a local Balkan problem, for which blame can be confined to a part of the map which we have associated with violence for centuries.

But that is a self-serving half-truth. The other half is much more disturbing: we — mainstream Europe and its foreign policy establishment of the time — could have stopped the worst of his excesses, but decided not to."

"...Abu Dhabi is likely to at least help prevent Dubai from defaulting on its debt again. Over the next ten years or so, it is unlikely that Dubai will regain its record of unsteady unsupported growth. Rather, it is likely to grow at a slower but more sustainable rate. And maybe by the time the investors return in a few years time, the Government will have built some roads to those speculative skyscrapers now stranded in the sands of the Arabian desert."

"Last week, I was at the Illinois Saint Andrew Society — the oldest charity of its type in Illinois — where I had the honour of being awarded its Distinguished Citizen's Award. The creed of that society says it all. "We welcome everyone," it runs, who is Scottish "by birth, heritage or simply by inclination." It is a positive form of nationalism, which brings out the best in people. As a Scottish Muslim who is proud of both parts of my identity, I feel this especially strongly. If we leave Saint Andrew's Day to those who want to associate Scottish nationalism only with our Christian past, we are sunk. Celebrating our fine Scottish heritage is especially important these days, when there's a danger of ceding Scottish nationalism to the political Scottish nationalists, and thereby subtly de-legitimising those of us outside the SNP who are still proud of our Scottish heritage and want to see Scotland grow ever-more strong, prosperous and successful."

Most of the arguments that Iran is a threat to Israel center around Iranian President Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitism and holocaust denial. But he does not make Iranian foreign policy, Khameini does. Khameini has been in office since 1989, throughout the period of relative detente with the West during Khatami's presidency, and through the violent and volatile Ahmadinejad years. Yes, there is evidence that Khameini is a tyrant comfortable sanctioning violence to hold onto power in Iran; no, there is no evidence that he is a psychopath whose hatred of Israel would drive him to order the murder of millions. Yes, there is evidence that he sanctions the sponsorship of anti-Israel terrorism to increase his influence in the region, but no, there is no evidence that he values a confrontation with Israel the reprisal from which would inevitably cause Iranian casualties and threaten the regime's already weak power structure (from within even if not from without).

"...[O]n the ground, Afghanistan does not look like a NATO mission, but a deployment of an ad hoc alliance. This impression is bolstered given that eight non-NATO countries are also contributing troops. This arrangement calls into question how genuine and useful the alliance will be in the future. It is no good to argue that NATO countries should share the burden more equally. That will not be enough to persuade skeptical governments to offer more troops. The truth is that the differences in deployment levels reflect real differences of public and political opinion. Unfortunately, there is no reason to expect that they should agree in the future either, as there is no longer agreement on what constitutes NATO's mission in Afghanistan."

"Imagine the front-ranking opposition front-bencher, with decades of work and experience behind him, forced to conclude he was underqualified to lead his party because he lacked a full head of hair. Or the shadow cabinet team, waiting to listen to speeches by two leadership contenders, knowing before either candidate has stepped on to the podium who they will vote for as leader by looking at their faces alone."