Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna
Part of26th January 2012
Back in July 2010 I wrote a blog called How to stop censorship in Ukraine. Based on a discussion with journalists, I noted both areas for concern and some areas for optimism; and observed that freedom of the media would be critical for Ukraine’s relationship with the EU because the Copenhagen criteria, which set out […]
24th January 2012
On a deeply snowy winter’s morning I visit Pushcha-Vodytsya, on the outskirts of Kiev, to address the participants of a week-long training course on social entrepreneurship. The idea of most business activity is to earn profits which can be paid to the shareholders who invested in the enterprise in the first place. The difference with […]
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20th January 2012
In a recent blog “Is Ukraine democratic?” I noted an “Economist”, report, The Democracy Index 2011 (pdf file), which showed Ukraine’s democratic ranking falling from 67th in 2010 to 79th in 2011 out of 167 countries. I noted that we should not read too much into a single report; and said it would be interesting […]
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18th January 2012
One hundred years ago, the great British explorer Captain Scott and his companions arrived at the South Pole. To mark this occasion, British Prime Minister David Cameron sent an audio message to the scientists and support staff at British bases in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. You can read more about the Prime Minister’s message […]
12th January 2012
British diplomats spend a lot of time learning foreign languages. Before each of my last four postings (in Vienna, Moscow, Berlin and Kyiv) I had the privilege of spending between four weeks and nine months on intensive language preparations. If you want to understand a country and its people, speaking the language helps. Conversely, the […]
11th January 2012
People sometimes wonder what an embassy does; and what international co-operation really means. By way of an interesting concrete example, the British Embassy organised a visit late last year by experts from the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre to meet their Ukrainian counterparts. The CEOP experts also met Ukrainian and international NGOs […]
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6th January 2012
In January 2011, I wrote a blog called “Is Ukraine free?” In it, I noted that for 2011, in the ranking produced by the US-based NGO Freedom House, Ukraine fell back into the “Partly Free” category, having been in the “Free” category every year since 2005. Being in the “Partly Free” category, with a score […]
4th January 2012
Back in 2009 I wrote a blog entitled “How to win the anti-corruption league”. In that blog I lamented the fact that Ukraine now stood at place 146 out of 180 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International. I noted how corruption reduced inward investment, and how helpful it would be if Ukraine could […]
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30th December 2011
With the New Year looming, here are 12 of my blogs from 2011: January: Is Ukraine Free? (Freedom House rankings) February: MI6, Art and Freedoms (“A Year with MI6”) March: Brilliant British Business in Ukraine (British Business Days) March: Down Syndrome: “Let Us In!” (Down Syndrome in the UK and Ukraine) April: What I think […]
29th December 2011
One of my favourite events in Kyiv is the BBC Book of the Year Award, sponsored by the BBC Ukrainian Service. I’ve presented the winner with the prize for the last four years, including in 2010 and this year — you can see a report on the prize, including details of the shortlist and the […]