26th April 2013 London, UK
Dealing with the legacy of conflict is a leading theme in foreign policy. The guns may fall silent, but years can pass before progress is made on a lasting settlement. That’s why this historic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo is to be profoundly welcomed. This is not the end of the story, but it is […]
1st March 2013 London, UK
Fishermen going out in all kinds of weather, catching healthy fish and then throwing up to two-thirds of them back into the sea, dead or dying: a wasteful, immoral policy that angered anyone who cares about conservation. It was a practice that never made sense, and this week it was agreed that it should stop. […]
26th February 2013
Last week we celebrated Burns Night, the traditional gathering of the clans to commemorate the great Scottish poet who was born into a poor farming family, but is now the literary hero of a nation. He had to struggle to gain acceptance and appreciation and faced bankruptcy and failure many times. I was reminded of […]
19th February 2013 London, UK
Britain has a proud history of innovation. In the field of medicine and the life sciences, we’ve brought the world penicillin, unravelled the mystery of DNA, sequenced the human genome and developed MRI scanning. UK scientists have been awarded more than 70 Nobel Prizes. Most recently, in 2012, Cambridge Professor John Gurdon was recognised by […]
25th January 2013 London, UK
London 2012 will be remembered as an event that created pride and excitement in the UK, and gave us the chance to show what we do best. Now it is Brazil’s turn, and it is the turn of Latin America. The first Olympic Games on this continent may be overdue, but it is certainly a […]
28th December 2012 London, UK
For anyone who enjoys sitting down over the holidays and reading the newspapers, Christmas and New Year are open season for lists. And in 2012, there’s been a lot to talk about. We’ve seen colleagues from across Government emerging bleary-eyed from late-night negotiations in Brussels having won around new allies to our point of view, […]
30th November 2012 London, UK
The Rolling Stones may not have been foremost in the minds of Ministers as they agreed to open trade talks between the EU and Japan yesterday, but if the negotiations are successful, they could be among those that benefit. The decision to open negotiations between two of the world’s largest economies was a major success […]
20th November 2012 London, UK
It’s not often that I blog about football, but this week I came across a truly inspiring story. Terry Nelson is a former Paratrooper who invented a suit that enables athletes to recuperate in water. He himself has represented our country and won a gold medal at the World Transplant Games in Vancouver in 1993. […]
6th November 2012 London, UK
In my last blog, I was looking back at the changes that came about as a result of 20 years of the single market. But for Croatia’s 4.4 million inhabitants, the last two decades have seen change of an even more profound variety. In 1992, the year I entered Parliament, war was still raging in […]
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15th October 2012 London, UK
This week, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Single Market, and it is a good moment to look back at how our relationship with Europe has changed over that time. Since 1992, the UK’s trade with EU member states has more than trebled. Currently, 3.5 million jobs – 11% of the UK’s workforce – […]