Iraq: the story of my testimony
With the ten year anniversary of the war, I wanted to tell the story of the evidence I gave to the first official inquiry into the war, an event that led to my resignation from the British foreign servce.
This site hosts my writing and media appearances including news about the documentary movie, Accidental Anarchist. I am a former British diplomat who resigned over the Iraq war. I founded the world's first non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat.
With the ten year anniversary of the war, I wanted to tell the story of the evidence I gave to the first official inquiry into the war, an event that led to my resignation from the British foreign servce.
The book (and indeed its author) is much inspired by, and cites, Spanish repubicanism and the “Spanish revolution” when anarchism flowered in worker-run farms and businesses (and was snuffed out by fascism, of course). Here’s the link to the review.
Continue reading “un elogio del anarquismo” – a Catalan review of “The Leaderless Revolution”
The Oslo Forum is an unusual gathering of high-level political mediators, organized by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. They have gathered a book of essays on mediation, by authors including Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt and Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide. I was very honoured to be invited to contribute. My essay tries to specify exactly what kind of conditions are necessary for successful mediation, in particular what kinds of access, to both negotiations and information. You can download the book, for free, Continue reading Building Peace: Five conditions for successful mediation
This is the first episode of “The World: Decrypted” a short video commentary on international affairs
Continue reading “The World: Decrypted” my video commentary on Slate, Feb 8th, 2013
An interesting video about Semco, an innovative worker-led company in Brazil. Very much the sort of thing that The Leaderless Revolution talks about as a new form of the company, the basic unit of the economy.
Continue reading Socialist Anarchism or Progressive Capitalism (well neither actually)
A very generous profile of me and Independent Diplomat in Foreign Policy magazine.
Continue reading “Can you save diplomacy from itself” Foreign Policy
I have been very shocked by the impact of this storm on New York, and particularly the city’s failure to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable. The authorities were clearly unprepared for this disaster, and when it struck it was the poor and invisible who were hit the hardest, and were then the most ignored.
Hunger, ill health and poverty are simple to measure
From Mr Carne Ross.
This is the title of an influential essay by Jo Freeman aka Joreen about the many subtle and insidious risks of leaderless movements, including, for instance, the formation of unacknowledged and informal elites. Her recommendations on principles to avoid such dangers are interesting, and are pasted below. The essay does not discuss more structured systems of decision-making within leaderless movements (the Occupy General Assembly and Spokescouncil models are examples of such). But Freeman’s observations are importan Continue reading The Tyranny of Structurelessness