Diary – 17 August 2017

To the Business School at the University of Edinburgh to be interviewed on the theme of ‘Great Political Disasters’. Main criteria for inclusion: decisions, often taken for short-term reasons, whose unforeseen consequences have echoed down the ages. Everyone will have their own little list, but mine included the Balfour declaration, Partition, Suez, Wilson’s failure to devalue in 1964 (which haunted subsequent Labour governments), Denis Healey’s IMF loan in 1976 (which he later admitted had been unnecessary and which led to the Winter of Discontent and the election of Margaret Thatcher), the poll tax, Iraq and the Brexit referendum (yes, I...