21st December 2021
What have the Prime Minister, Battersea Park and a camel in Pakistan got in common? They’ve all helped further the cause of girls’ education this year. Despite the disastrous impact of COVID-19 on children’s learning across the world, the UK has continued to support the education of the world’s most marginalised children – particularly girls […]
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14th December 2021
In my role, I am surrounded by strong women – leaders, experts and fighters for issues they believe in. It is sobering for me to realise that many of these women would not be where they are today if they had not been able to freely make choices about their own lives and, even more fundamentally, their own […]
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21st October 2021 London, UK
A few years ago, a plaque appeared on the side of the FCDO building in King Charles Street, Whitehall. Set high in the wall and easy to miss, it commemorates a former slave, abolitionist, writer, composer and grocer. Ignatius Sancho was a man who through his own authentic voice changed contemporary perceptions of what it […]
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11th October 2021
This year I’ve had the privilege of heading the UK’s G7 anti-corruption efforts, negotiating the commitments which Interior and Security Ministers announced in September. I’ve worked on anti-corruption policy for more than five years and in that time have experienced the buzz of the 2016 London Anti-corruption Summit and the satisfaction of shepherding knotty issues […]
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19th September 2021
The year 2021 marks several anniversaries for diplomacy in the Polar Regions. Whilst the Arctic and Antarctic are truly ‘Poles apart’, diplomacy for these icy regions shares common objectives of peace, security, sustainability and protection. Antarctica The Antarctic Treaty marked 60 years since its entry into force on 23 June 2021. The Treaty Parties marked […]
16th April 2021
In March 1968 His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited Wiston House to open the 100th conference of Wilton Park since its founding in 1946. Originally hosted at a Prisoner of War camp of the same name in Buckinghamshire, Wilton Park emerged from a growing recognition of the responsibility the UK had […]
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8th April 2021
In recent weeks, inaccurate media reports around the new rules for UK nationals living in and travelling to Europe may have caused confusion, so I want to lay out the facts of what our new relationship with the European Union means for you. UK nationals settled in Europe before 1 January 2021 If you are […]
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7th April 2021 Berlin, Germany
In March 2021, the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT), the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) and the North Rhine Westphalian Cyber Crime Agency ZAC invited UK and German stakeholders to a first virtual roundtable on the role innovation and technologies can play to fight online harms. With the aim to spur […]
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22nd February 2021
Visibility is important. In my first month in Norway the evening news ran a profile piece on me in which I talked about my husband Xavier. A 16 year-old boy wrote to me and told me that seeing this had made him believe for the first time that his dreams were worth just as much […]