3rd December 2024
RENEWING OLD TIES: THE NEW BISHOP OF LONDON
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
25th November 2024
The climate crisis and gender-based violence
8th November 2024
Ecolabels: A Catalyst for Sustainable Food Choices?
19th January 2016
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Life Chances: Laudato Si’ half a year on
Pope Francis’s encyclical letter Laudato Si’ – On Care for our Common Home was released to the public seven months ago. A lot has happened in the interim. Most important was an ambitious new global climate agreement secured in Paris in December, welcomed and pushed for by the British government, at which 180 countries representing […]
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15th January 2016 Havana, Cuba
Health and Education in Capitalist Countries
There’s one misconception that I hear time and time again in Cuba that needs correcting. Barely a week goes by without someone telling me that in capitalist countries people have to pay for all health and education services. That’s simply not true. In many, many countries with capitalist economic systems, health and education are provided […]
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15th January 2016 Washington DC, USA
Tackle the American market like you would Disneyland
With over three hundred million consumers, fifty state governments, entrepreneurial dynamism, century old corporate giants and competition that bite, the US is an enormous, diverse and challenging market to understand. Many UK businesses have a false sense of security when it comes to doing business in the US – often misled by our shared “English” […]
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15th January 2016 Singapore
2016-2017 Bidding Round – Now Open!
We are pleased to announce that the bidding round for the South East Asia Prosperity Fund for 2016/2017 is now open. If you have ideas for a project on economic development or to help reduce climate change, check out our website for more information on the fund’s priorities and how to apply. The bidding round closes […]
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13th January 2016 Hanoi, Vietnam
Youth Parliament programme
First of all, let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a healthy and successful New Year. “Chuc mung nam moi”! For my first blog of 2016 I thought I’d try something a little different so I invited Nguyen Ngoc Lan, a student at the Hanoi Law University, to share this blog with me. Lan […]
12th January 2016 Canberra, Australia
RIP David Bowie
While I was being born in September 1967, David Bowie (real name David Jones) was 20 years old, and trying to make it big in music. Thrilled to receive a letter from an American fan who had actually heard his music, he penned this response. I love this letter – it speaks to the humility, […]
11th January 2016 Houston, USA
BLOG: A Space Blogyssey Part 3
This blog is the final blog in a three-part series on the UK Space Sector. (A Space Blogyssey Pt. 1 & A Space Blogyssy Pt. 2) It is hard to believe that we are almost 60 years away from the first age of space exploration, marked by the launch of Sputnik in 1957. As the […]
11th January 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
The Geneva Agenda for 2016
The Geneva institutions are facing big questions at the start of 2016. Will the humanitarian system adapt to the challenges of protracted conflicts and unsustainable mass migration? Will the World Trade Organization (WTO) rediscover its role at the heart of the global economy? Can we respond effectively to the growing threat of pandemics and the […]
8th January 2016
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
History and healing: remembering the Stuarts
On 8 January, with the gracious permission of Her Majesty The Queen, I laid a wreath at the tomb in the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica of James Francis Edward Stuart, 250 years after his burial there. The message on the wreath was very simple: “In memoriam – James Francis Edward Stuart – ‘The Chevalier’ […]
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8th January 2016
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Press Freedom in Turkey
I was proud to be one of a number of Consuls General, who visited the offices of Cumhuriyet on 6 January. We made the following statement, and handed over a signed text: “As representatives of EU consulates based in Istanbul, we wish for Turkish journalists across the whole political spectrum to be able to exercise […]