Nuclear proliferation - the proliferation of WMDs altogether - is one of the greatest dangers of our time.

Developments in information technology and globalised media mean that the most powerful military in the history of the world can lose a war, not on the battlefield of dust and blood, but on the battlefield of world opinion.

But transitions from the politics of violence to democratic compromise are always messy.

One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image.

The key to the survival of liberty in the modern world is the embrace of multiple identities.

The whole project of European Union is one in deep trouble.

I have also been saddened, though hardly surprised, by the weakness of the EU's reaction to the criminal attack on the Danish embassy in Syria, which seems to have been permitted, if not actively encouraged, by the Syrian regime.