Christopher Montgomery

Bereft of inspiration, instead of spending Sunday afternoon cogitating on the insipid evils of British Foreign Policy, all I could think on was a.) what would dinner be, and b.) just how exciting is 24? So instead I sought inspiration by strolling. I met up with a friend and together we walked from Westminster over … Continue reading “Living History”

What do Europeans want? And would they like it if they got it? Do they sometimes say no when they mean yes, fake pleasure at things that really can’t be desperately good for them, and maybe even have a pronounced tendency not actually to know what it is the silly moos want? Truth to tell, … Continue reading “Superduperstate”

What I’d really like to do is to tell you some good news for a change, that something has changed, and changed for the better, but I’m afraid that, by the lights of this column, there’s not much of that on the go. ‘Airstrip One,’ inasmuch as it has a theme, is all about whether … Continue reading “Introducing Ameroscepticism”

Completely by accident I found myself at my first anti-war demonstration on Saturday. I was walking up from St James’s Park towards the West End, specifically Soho, when I heard, as I passed Horseguards Parade, the fairly familiar sound of a rally taking place in Trafalgar Square. So, being curious (and always interested to know … Continue reading “Straws In the Wind”

I sometimes think the luckiest thing about America is that she doesn’t have within her borders ‘pro-Americans’. That is to say, she doesn’t, to any degree of public visibility have that troupe of people, who, for whatever amongst a wide range of reasons, take it upon themselves to be America’s ‘buddies’ overseas. To take an … Continue reading “Your Friends In the West”

Is the statement, ‘America’s position as pre-eminent world power will not last indefinitely’ a truism? That is to say, is this a statement too obviously true to be worth making? It was not blindingly obvious to Nately, Catch-22‘s embodiment of east coast rectitude and privilege. Whilst visiting his whore he was taunted by an old … Continue reading “Nately’s Old Man”

When, twenty years ago, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands – subjecting their British inhabitants to the severest tyranny imaginable (they made them drive on the right hand side of the road) – many Reagan administration officials found themselves in the rare position of agreeing with Mario Vargas Llosa, in that they too felt surely this … Continue reading “Twenty Years On”

Although, according to The Daily Telegraph, those considered disloyal to Robert Mugabe are today in Zimbabwe being, ‘subjected to terror on a scale that bears comparison with the Khmer Rouge‘, it would be dishonest if I claimed that that was what bothered me the most. No, I’m afraid that what I found most depressing, in … Continue reading “Zimbabwe: Whose Problem Is It Anyway?”

Does it matter if you win an important political battle with bad arguments? The natural Tory reaction, honing straight in on that evasive little word, ‘bad’, is to reply: not a bit, winning’s the thing. After all, who’s to say what being bad in this context amounts to? And as a guide to happy, or … Continue reading “How To Say No?”

Last year, The Daily Telegraph sponsored a conference in London on the contentious subject of Star Wars – or to foreign policy bores like you and me, National Missile Defence. We will straight-away pass up on the cheap shot about, ‘uh, which nation’s that then, that’s going to be defended?’ and instead consider the enthusiastic … Continue reading “Not So MAD Then?”