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Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

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12th September 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

Foreign Office minister sees changes since his backpacking days

Jeremy Browne, FCO Minister of State, spent three days in Australia visiting Sydney and Brisbane. He commented that the country had changed since his last visit as a 19 year old backpacker in the 80s, but the welcome was just as warm. He noted that Australia is now the world’s 13th largest economy, a member […]

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6th September 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

War Memorials, Welsh Prime Ministers, Wacky Comedians

I was involved in a number of events  last week which reminded me of the multi-faceted relationship between Britain and Australia. On a sunny morning in Canberra, I laid a wreath at a memorial service to honour Australians who had served in the Malayan Emergency (1948-60) and Indonesian Confrontation (1962-66). These successful campaigns are nowadays […]

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1st September 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

Cautious optimism at the Australia Davos Connection Leadership Retreat

Last weekend I attended the annual Hayman Island Retreat organised by the Australian Davos Connection. It is a prestigious gathering of senior figures from the worlds of business and government, together with eminent academics and thinkers to provoke discussion on long term trends. This year’s theme was .”On the Edge – confidence in the face […]

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31st August 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

Close cooperation on Afghanistan and Pakistan: visit by UK Special Representative

Mark Sedwill, the UK’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, visited Canberra last week. He is a former British Ambassador in Kabul, and was NATO Civilian Representative alongside General Petraeus until earlier this year. So he was already well known to many of the Australian interlocutors on whom he called. I took him to see […]

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18th August 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

An Iftar dinner in Canberra

Last night, I was pleased to be invited by the Blue Star Intercultural Centre to celebrate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, over a traditional Iftar dinner in a Muslim family home in the Canberra suburbs. Having lived for the last four years in Singapore where a sixth of the population are Muslim, I knew […]

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29th July 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

The Poms’ Olympics may be even better than ours

Australian Olympic experts were extraordinarily complimentary about the London Olympics at events I attended in Canberra and Sydney on Wednesday to mark the milestone of ‘One Year To Go’. The Sydney event, a fundraising dinner for the Australian team, was a fantastic spectacle.  There were 800 people including some 80 Olympians.  The room was decked […]

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27th July 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

CHOGM preparations in Perth, Magna Carta in Adelaide

A busy few days, with a trip to Perth to recce for the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting which will take place in October. Hosting a meeting for 54 heads of government and HM The Queen is quite a tall order, but we were impressed with the professionalism of Australian plans. It is shaping […]

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19th July 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

Commonwealth Law Ministers in Sydney

It was an unusually “legal” week for me in Sydney last week, with Lord McNally, Minister of State for Justice attending the Commonwealth Law Ministers Meeting, and later in the week the Rt Hon Dominic Grieve MP, Attorney General, participating in a separate Quint meeting with his opposite numbers from Australia, the US, Canada and […]

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1st July 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

Adelaide: Australia’s most English city

Adelaide with its graceful buildings and abundant parkland is sometimes described as the most British, even English, of Australian cities. I certainly found many connections there. The Premier, Mike Rann, is English-born. The Governor, Admiral Kevin Scarce, served in Portsmouth as a young naval officer. And Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood had just returned from a […]

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29th June 2011

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by Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

Go Cats: Watching Aussie Rules Football

I was invited to watch a holiday weekend footy match, another Australian tradition. I had decided that I needed to choose an Aussie Rules team to support, so I opted for the Geelong Cats (on the personal advice of the State Premier of Victoria, where the game is mostly played). Geelong President Colin Carter filled […]

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About Paul Madden

Paul Madden has been the British Ambassador to Japan from January 2017. He was Additional Director for Asia Pacific at the FCO in 2015.He was British High Commissioner to Australia…

Paul Madden has been the British Ambassador to Japan from January 2017.

He was Additional Director for Asia Pacific at the FCO in 2015.He was British High Commissioner to Australia until February 2015. Prior to this he was British High Commissioner in Singapore from 2007-2011.

A career diplomat, he was previously Managing Director at UK Trade and Investment (2004-2006), responsible for co-ordinating and
implementing international trade development strategies to support
companies across a wide range of business sectors.

As Assistant Director of Information at the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office (2003-2004) he was responsible for public diplomacy policy,
including managing the FCO funding of the BBC World Service, the British
Council and the Chevening Scholarships programme. He led the team
responsible for the award-winning UK pavilion at the Aichi Expo in Japan
2005.

He was Deputy High Commissioner in Singapore from 2000-2003 and has
also served in Washington (1996-2000) and Tokyo (1988-92). Between
1992-96 he worked on EU enlargement and Environmental issues at the FCO
in London.

Before joining FCO he worked at the Department of Trade and Industry
(1980-87) on a range of industrial sectors and trade policy, including
two years as a minister’s Private Secretary.

He has an MA in Economic Geography from Cambridge University, an MBA
from Durham University, studied Japanese at London University’s School
of Oriental and African Studies, and is a Fellow of the Royal
Geographical Society. His first book, Raffles: Lessons in Business
Leadership, was published in 2003.

Married to Sarah, with three children, he was born in 1959, in Devon.

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