Had an interesting discussion this week in Brussels about EU policy towards foreign direct inward investment.
Should the EU allow anyone to buy up our strategic industries - especially energy and defence? Should we insist on reciprocity of investment opportunity if we allow inward FDI? Or should we manage our risks by a move towards a "democracies-only" inward investment policy?
More to the point, how can we make sure that we have a free choice and not one forced by need for FDI - a position which we should surely be able to reach, given the size of our GDP.
Hard choices - or rather avoidance of them by the EU - a theme I'll return to in 2008, reinforced by time to reflect from far away from Europe.
This is the last blog for 2007, so I leave you with a poser (mainly for British readers)
Who, before Gordon Brown, was the last man from Dunfermline to try to rule England?
Answer in first post of 2008 - have a good Christmas and New Year
Introduction
About me
Books I've enjoyed recently...
- "On the beach" - Neville Shute (his gripping cold war novel about the last survivors on the planet - in Melbourne - of a nuclear exchange in the Northern hemisphere. One of the few books which, once started, you really can't put down. The film version - more soap opera than a real challenge to complacency - lacks the same sense of impending doom)
- "The road to serfdom" - Friedrich Hayek (deserves a periodic re-read to remind us that in a totalitarian societies the tyranny is the point of everything, not just an unfortunate by-product)
- "People like us - Misrepresenting the Middle East" - Joris Luyendijk (A Dutch journalist's reflections on five years in the Middle East - reminding us that "Syria is not a country with an army but an army with a country"
- "Occupational hazards" - Rory Stewart MP (the on the ground story of his time as a Deputy Provincial Governor in post-Saddam Iraq)
- "The end of the Party" - Andrew Rawnsley (the definitive word on the catastrophe of New Labour)
- "Off message" - Bob Marshall-Andrews (memoirs - you don't have to agree with everything he says to enjoy this book)
- "Elizabeth's spymaster" - Robert Hutchinson (the life of Sir Francis Walsingham and the dilemmas of keeping England safe from domestic and foreign threat)
- "When a crocodile eats the sun" - Peter Godwin (a personal family account of the unfolding tragedy in Zimbabwe)
- "Spin" - Martin Sixsmith (a novel(?) about New Labour)
- "The shadow of the sun" (wise perspectives on Africa from the late Polish foreign correspondent Ryszard Kapuscinski)
- "Out of my comfort zone" - Steve Waugh's autobiography (as good a book on management and career management as I've read for a long time)
- "Fantasy Island" - Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson (on Tony Blair's legacy and the UK's unbalanced economy)
- "Murder in Amsterdam" - Ian Buruma (on the murder of Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh)
Must see...
- "Tinker,Tailor,Soldier,Spy" ("Spooks" 1970s style, though I can' t see Sir Harry swimming in the lake in Hyde Park....)
- "Dr Strangelove" (needs no introduction as the classic Cold War black comedy)
- Any episode of "Spooks" (essential viewing for anyone in public decision making)
- "Hotel Rwanda" (a reminder that genocide has touched recent history)
- "The lives of others" (a reminder of what the Stasi were like - a counterweight to the (also outstanding) "Goodbye Lenin")
If you like this site, try....
Recently published
- "Smart public service delivery in a cold economic climate" by Michael Burnett in "Driving Public Sector Excellence" (available from www.epsa2011.eu)
- Competitive Dialogue - A practical guide by Michael Burnett (available from www.eipa.eu)
- Public-Private Partnerships - A decision maker's guide by Michael Burnett (available from www.eipa.eu)
