Standards

A publication about statecraft has no standing unless it can be checked. These are the rules The Chancery holds itself to.

Sourcing

We link to primary documents wherever one exists — the treaty text, the communiqué, the ministry statement, the register entry — rather than to another outlet’s description of it. Where we rely on secondary reporting, we say whose.

Where a claim cannot be linked, we say what kind of basis it has and how confident we are. “Officials in two governments describe” is a different claim from “the text states”, and we do not blur them.

Analysis versus reporting

Every piece is labelled by section, and the labels mean something.

• Briefings report events and say what they signal. The reporting and the inference are kept visibly separate.
• Analysis and Long Reads advance arguments. They are the author’s assessment, and they are marked as such.

We do not present an argument as a finding, and we do not launder a view through anonymous attribution.

Uncertainty

Fast reporting on unfolding events is provisional. Where the picture is incomplete, we say so in the piece rather than implying a certainty we do not have. We would rather publish a clearly hedged judgement than a confident wrong one.

Corrections

We correct promptly, visibly and without defensiveness.

• Factual errors are corrected in place, with a dated note at the foot of the piece stating what was wrong and what it now says.
• Substantive changes of judgement after publication are marked as updates, with the original reasoning left intact.
• Silent edits are made only for typography and broken links.

We never delete a published piece to resolve an error. If something is wrong enough to withdraw, the page stays up carrying the withdrawal.

To report an error, email the address in the footer. Corrections are the fastest way to earn a reply.

Independence and conflicts

The Chancery takes no funding from any government, political party, campaign, or organisation with a direct stake in the subjects we cover. Should that ever change, it will be disclosed on this page before it affects a word of coverage.

Where a writer has a relevant affiliation — past employment, membership, or personal connection to a subject — it is disclosed in the piece.

Artificial intelligence

We use AI tools in research, drafting and production. Every published claim is checked by a human, and editorial judgement — what to cover, what to conclude, what to withhold — is human and not delegated. We do not publish AI-generated text that no one has verified.

Privacy

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