Recently I travelled to London to attend the annual Foreign Office Leadership Conference, which brings together the heads of our diplomatic posts from around the world, and senior officials based in London. It’s a chance to discuss the big issues that are facing all of us, and to hear from Foreign Office ministers and ministers from other Government Departments about their priorities. A lot of the policy discussion was about the big international issues such as Syria and Iran, and Britain’s Presidency of the G8 (which culminated last week in a summit in Lougherne, in Northern Ireland). But there was also a lot of discussion of what the Foreign Secretary calls “diplomatic excellence” – his ambition that we should be the best diplomatic service in the world, delivering what Britain needs internationally despite a very tough situation in terms of resources. It’s a combination of knowledge of issues and countries, skills – in languages, in negotiation and so on – and our effectiveness in using those to achieve the results that matter to us.
There were also thematic sessions covering issues including cultural diplomacy – using cultural activities to reinforce the kind of images of Britain that we want to convey – and energy. On the latter, there was a fascinating if sobering presentation by the Director General of the International Energy Agency, who gave a bleak picture of the failure of the world’s industrial nations to slow down the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s always nice to be thanked by the Foreign Secretary and (on this occasion remotely as he was in New York) by the Prime Minister and to feel our bosses have confidence in us – but want us to do better still – and that’s how we all felt at the end of the plenary day.
I left the conference early to return to Tashkent for the annual Oil and Gas exhibition and conference. They are organised by a British company, ITE, who have been working here for 20 years, and the conference featured a number of British companies and British speakers. I only attended the first morning as after that the discussion became very technical.
I spoke about the British Government’s approach to world energy markets and to energy security over the coming years, and I listened with interest to a series of presentations ranging from the broad brush economic/ political to technical issues about exploration and drilling methods.
As a diplomat one has to be able to learn enough to deal at a serious level with a huge range of subjects – I have found myself in the past having to develop expertise on forestry management, on nuclear deterrence theory, on city planning, on Olympics protocol. It’s often fascinating, though it leaves me wishing I had several lifetimes so that I could spend more time on all these issues. At least I feel I am always learning, and that’s one of the things I love about my job as a diplomat – and I think, to return to where I started, it’s part of diplomatic excellence.