Airstrip One

The Foreign Policy Centre

If you want a flavour of the themes that run through the thinktanks behind New Labour foreign policy, one of the places to stop is the Foreign Policy Centre. Whilst Blair is the patron and Robin Cook is the President. The usual raft of reports on Europe, globalisation, transnationalism and ethical foreign policy masks a glint of geopolitical awareness that saves this think tank from total futility.

The reports noted include Andrew Tyrie's essay on why the Conservatives should not have supported the Iraqi war, a pamphlet that, I am ashamed to say, passed me by at the time.

And on a side note, Christopher Montgomery, Emmanuel's sorely missed replacement at antiwar.com and founder of the Electric Review, is now director of the Friends of the Union. His latest piece on the passage of Jeffrey Donaldson to the DUP was recently featured in the Guardian.