A message from the Chair
This section was first started by Richard Bourne to give a monthly update for readers and supporters of The Round Table journal on developments leading up to the centenary celebrations of our journal (started in the Edwardian era).
Due to its popularity, it is now being continued by the new Chair of the editorial advisory board, (known since the early twentieth century as the Moot), Stuart Mole.
View the messages by selecting any of the links below:
Archive of Chair's messages
Below can be found an archive of all the messages written by the Chair of the Moot, which is the editorial advisory board for The Round Table
- January 2012 - The Round Table post-CHOGM conference
I start the New Year in Cambridge, at Sidney Sussex College where The Round Table is holding its post-CHOGM conference. This January we gather to dissect the Commonwealth of Nations, recently returned from its summit (or Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting - CHOGM) in Western Australia.
Read More... - December 2011 - The inaugural Rex Nettleford Memorial Lecture
As the year draws to its close, I am in Oxford. Following a once-familiar route down the Banbury and Parks Roads, I arrive on the steps of Rhodes House. Designed by Sir Herbert Baker, the building is also a grand memorial to its benefactor, the diamond magnate and imperial visionary, Cecil Rhodes.
Read More... - November 2011 - The Perth CHOGM
Qantas put the final seal on the CHOGM. The management's decision to ground all flights the day before the end of the summit looked like an attempt to leverage maximum influence both from CHOGM and – more importantly for Australians – from the Melbourne Gold Cup, due to take place a few days later.
Read More... - October 2011 - Perth Notebook
I squeezed my suitcase closed, reflecting ruefully that it was the presence of too many documents and papers that was once more pushing me into an excess baggage charge. It is ten years since I last journeyed to Australia for a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
Read More... - September 2011 - 50th Anniversary of the death of Dag Hammarskjöld
Fifty years ago this month, the world was shocked to learn of the sudden death of the second United Nations Secretary-General, the death of Dag Hammarskjöld. At that time, Hammarskjöld was at the eye of a storm.
Read More... - July/August 2011 - Will South Sudan be the Commonwealth's 55th member?
Since the fledgling state achieved independence on 9 July 2011, it has joined the United Nations and the African Union. And it has made no secret of its desire for Commonwealth membership too.
Read More... - June 2011 - It was 19 May 1986, and apartheid still had South Africa in its malevolent grip.
It was early morning in Cape Town. The sun was up and the hotel was beginning to stir. There were riots in the townships, a partial state of emergency and a rising clamour for greater international pressure on the regime. All this had brought a Commonwealth team to the troubled land of its former member. It is twenty-five years since those stirring and groundbreaking events.
Read More... - May 2011 - Saturday 2 April- polling day in Nigeria's parliamentary elections - was not going well.
High security was visible from daybreak. Groups of voters and party agents had begun to gather at Nigerias 200,000 or more polling stations well before the 8 a.m. opening time. But of the electoral officials supposed to be running the elections, there was no sign.
Read More... - April 2011 - Arriving early in the morning in Abuja, Nigeria's capital city...
I am struck by the changes that have occurred since my last visit nearly three years ago. New highways have been built, or are under construction. Gleaming high-rise buildings have mushroomed in the city centre. The telecommunications industry is booming and, on top of a growth rate of nearly 8%, there is the unexpected windfall of high oil prices. At 90% of total exports, oil revenues remain Nigeria's blessing – and its bane.
Read More... - March 2011 - A blossoming of 'Arab Spring' in 2011.
2011 has seen the blossoming of 'Arab Spring'. Many have watched with awe and astonishment as the all-enveloping blanket of arbitrary rule across the Arab world has been thrown back, at some of its seemingly most secure points, like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Read More... - January 2011 - How to define "the Commonwealth"?.
Despite a cold and gloomy January, the Round Table's first meeting of the year was an occasion of warmth and optimism First, the Editorial Board (or Moot, as it is traditionally called) expressed their profound thanks to Richard Bourne as he came to the end of an invigorating and fruitful five years as Chair. The high point of his term was undoubtedly an event-packed centenary celebration in (and around) 2010. Read More... - December 2010 - What sort of Commonwealth will we have in ten years' time - let alone a hundred?
It is clear that there are quite different expectations for the Eminent Persons Group, reporting on the Commonwealth's future to next year's summit in Perth, Australia. Read More... - November 2010 - How to define "the Commonwealth"?
It is wrong to define "the Commonwealth" as the Commonwealth Secretariat and Commonwealth Foundation, as seasonal greetings cards used to do. The Commonwealth actually consists of over 2000 million people in 54 states, though many citizens are blissfully unaware of their membership. A proposal by Derek Ingram over a decade ago for a Commonwealth loyalty card, worth reviving, might change this amnesia. Read More... - October 2010 - Is the Commonwealth just a niche player?
Is the Commonwealth just a niche player, filling gaps in international machinery, or can it be a pioneering consensus-builder, building global support for fresh policy and action, which uses its own expertise and concern? Read More... - September 2010 - Time for a Commonwealth Games review?
An exceptional monsoon, a risky 'just-in-time' local management with inadequate Commonwealth supervision, a ferociously critical Indian and international media – and hey presto the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi were in crisis before they began. Read More... - August 2010 - Australia's Commonwealth
Australia's inconclusive election meant that whoever became Prime Minister -- Julia Gillard for Labor, or Tony Abbott for the Liberal/ National coalition -- would preside over the first Commonwealth summit they had ever attended. This is not unprecedented. Read More... - July 2010 - Fair Elections?
How free and fair will elections be in the Commonwealth's newest member, Rwanda? Its presidential election is planned for 9 August, and already the UN Secretary-General has demanded a full inquiry into allegations of politically motivated killings of opposition figures. Read More... - June 2010 - Empire and Me
A big difference between two post-colonial associations-la Francophonie and the Commonwealth-is that the first began as a cultural and linguistic body, while the second has its roots in politics and economics. Read More... - May 2010 - Democracy and coalitions
So the United Kingdom, one of the 54 member states of the Commonwealth, has acquired a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. After a first-past-the-post election in which no party had a majority, the politicians have quite quickly created the first coalition since Churchill's in wartime. Read More... - March 2010 - Reforming the commonwealth
Over the next few months the outlines of a third attempt since 1989 to reform the Commonwealth will become clearer. In Port of Spain last November the leaders decided to appoint an Eminent Persons' Group to examine the processes and future of the association. Read More... - February 2010 - A Zimbabwean experience
It was when a cab driver, taking me to the University of Zimbabwe just outside Harare, told me that he was an old man, that the full extent of his country's catastrophe hit me. He was only 55. Yet such has been the crash in life expectancy in just over a decade that he has become, actuarially, an old man. Read More... - January 2010 - The Commonwealth - A great global good?
Is the Commonwealth, as Kamalesh Sharma has claimed, "A great global good"? This was the title of the Round Table's third centenary conference and, in a frank, no-nonsense discussion at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor, the answer was "Maybe - but it could do better." Read More... - December 2009 - A post-CHOGM summary 2009
The captains and kings have departed, and Port of Spain, site of the 21st Commonwealth summit attended by Derek Ingram, veteran commentator, has returned to its usual traffic jams, sense of humour and Caribbean vibe. Read More... - November 2009 - Commonwealth as a champion of small states
How successful is the Commonwealth as a champion of small states - some 32 out of the total membership of 53? And does its activity for the smaller members damage or enhance the interest shown in it by its medium sized and stronger countries? Read More... - October 2009 - Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009
Last month I mentioned that the Commonwealth's biennial cycle was ripening up in anticipation of the leaders' summit in Trinidad and Tobago at the end of November (27-29 November to be exact). Read More... - September 2009 - Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009
The Commonwealth moves in a biennial cycle, and diplomats and lobbyists are now gearing up for the summit in Port of Spain from 27 to 29 November, 2009. Read More... - August 2009 - Winner of 1st Routledge/Round Table award
This month I can now say something about the winner of the first Routledge/Round Table award, tenable at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. Read More... - July 2009 - Round Table centenary scholarships
For this month we have begun with a bang. Eight hundred people inquired, 112 put in completed applications, and six students at universities in the UK were awarded the special Round Table centenary scholarships which are funding travel and fieldwork in other Commonwealth countries. Read More...