Nigel was British Ambassador to the Holy See from 2011-2016. He presented his Credentials to Pope Benedict XVI on 9 September 2011, after serving 8 years in Latin America, as…
Nigel was British Ambassador to the Holy See from 2011-2016. He presented his Credentials to Pope Benedict XVI on 9 September 2011, after serving 8 years in Latin America, as Deputy Head of Mission in the British Embassy in Havana, Cuba (2003-6) and then as British Ambassador in La Paz, Bolivia (2007-11). In July 2016, Nigel finished his posting, and is currently back in London.
As the first British Ambassador to the Holy See ever to have a blog, Nigel provided a regular window on what the Embassy and the Ambassador does. The blogs covered a wide range of issues, from Royal and Ministerial visits to Diplomacy and Faith, freedom of religion, human trafficking and climate change.
More on Nigel’s career
Nigel was based in London between 1998 and 2003. He spent two years on European Union issues (for the UK 1998 EU Presidency and on European Security and Defence questions), before crossing St James’s Park to work for three years as The Assistant Private Secretary to His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. At St James’s Palace, Nigel worked on international issues, including the management of The Prince of Wales’s overseas visits and tours, on the Commonwealth, interfaith issues, the arts and international development.
Nigel spent much of the early part of his FCO career in Central Europe, after an initial stint as Desk Officer for the Maghreb countries in the Near East and North Africa department (1990-91). Between 1992 and 1996, Nigel served in the British embassies in Prague and Bratislava, the latter being created in 1993 after the peaceful division of Czechoslovakia into the separate Czech and Slovak Republics.
Nigel joined the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) in September 1989. Between 1996 and 1998 he took a two year academic sabbatical to research and write about themes in 18th century European history, being based in Verona but also researching in Cambridge, Paris and Naples. The research followed from Nigel’s time as a student at Cambridge (1985-88) where he read history and was awarded a First Class Honours degree, followed by his MA in 1992.
Before joining the Foreign Office, Nigel worked briefly for the Conservative Research Department in London at the time of the 1989 European election campaign.
Nigel married Alexandra (Sasha) in 1997. They have one son, Benjamin, born in Bolivia in September 2008.
I’m from Bolivia and I always wonder to my self, why governments didn’t do anything to stop this?.
One of the answers to this is that historically people that work for the government don’t know anything about technology, in fact they don’t know to much about anything except steeling techniques to take money from Bolivia and send it to the US or Europe to go to live there.
Besides this, there is another reason, software corporations don’t do anything as well, Microsoft products are the most illegally software used in Bolivia nevertheless Microsoft didn’t do anything to stop this, the reason for this has to do with a strategy to control the country.
Believe it or not, people don’t know the difference between hardware and software, they just think that a computer has Windows or a computer represent Window but they don’t know what is a software company, what is software industry, they don’t know that is a piece of software that they have to buy and it doesn’t come with the computer. So if Microsoft do something to stop that people use their product without a licence, people will acknolegde they have to pay for software and they simply won’t do it, so they will find others ways to avoid paying like change to other operating system for example, a hole country using other products, Microsoft will lose control over the country, it is not about money it is about control!!!!!