17th July 2025
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
15th July 2025
International Day of Women in Diplomacy: UK Special Envoy for Women and Girls visit to Geneva
1st May 2025
The UN Commission on the Status of Women: My first visit as UK Special Envoy for Women and Girls
11th February 2014 Paris, France
Celebrating London and Paris, past and future
We are now in the Bicentenary year for the Residence – 200 years ago, the Duke of Wellington bought this house from Pauline, the sister of Napoléon. To celebrate that, we are running a series of events through the year, highlighting both the past and the future of UK-French relations.
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11th February 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The Legacy of Benedict XVI
Much is likely to be written over the next few days about the legacy of Pope Benedict, a year since he announced he would be stepping down from office. No doubt many will be ready with their “compare and contrast” pieces, setting up one Pope against the other. Whatever we think of that approach, I […]
10th February 2014 Madrid, Spain
Diplomacy in the community
The Embassy moved into the Torre Espacio, in the North of Madrid, a few years ago. One of the benefits of moving here was to find ourselves as neighbours to La Paz Hospital – one of the best public sector hospitals in Spain. Over the years we have got to know the hospital well. Since […]
10th February 2014 Mumbai, India
Cool ties between India and the UK
I was privileged to attend an event at IISER Pune, late October last year, focused on the importance of academia-industry partnerships, the barriers that come in the way of such partnerships and possible solutions. I gave an overview of the existing UK-India innovation partnerships and the different funding schemes in place to help augment such […]
9th February 2014 Sana’a, Yemen
PROGRESS WILL BE PERSONAL
Every Yemeni and their international friends know that the real test of Yemen’s political transition process will be whether it improves the lives of most Yemenis. Progress won’t happen overnight: significant structural reforms are needed and corruption needs to be tackled before there are real improvements. Life in Yemen is tough: in 2005, 18% of […]
9th February 2014 Tripoli, Libya
Brits Don’t Do Culture – Or Do They?
When I first arrived in Doha last July, I was verging on the sceptical when I heard about the Qatar/UK 2013 Year of Culture. It didn’t sound particularly British, despite our popular cultural icons and their global reach. I’m as proud of James Bond, JK Rowling and One Direction as anyone, but when it comes […]
7th February 2014 Pretoria, South Africa
The Queen’s baton relay in Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa – In a week!
South Africa is never dull but this last week and the week to follow will test both the physical and mental stamina of the UK Family here. We kicked off on Wednesday with a youth engagement event at the High Commission to encourage support and interest in next week’s International Conference in London against Illegal […]
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7th February 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Poniendo fin al contrabando
La próxima semana en Costa Rica las Embajadas Británicas en la región de Centroamérica se reunirán para recibir una conferencia abordando el tema de Contrabando. Expertos y autoridades de toda la región (Guatemala, Honduras, El salvador, Panamá, Belice, Nicaragua y por supuesto Costa Rica) nos reuniremos para discutir de este tema fundamentalmente fronterizo. En las […]
7th February 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Bookish Britain
One of my favourite activities is to spend time browsing in a bookshop. When I was growing up, that was the most likely place I would go to when I visited our local town. I usually spent my pocket money on a book. Reading is still very popular in Britain. Radio 4, the main national […]
7th February 2014 Mumbai, India
UK-India ageing partnerships
Last month was an exciting one for me, as I saw months of hard-work and endless tele-cons, email exchanges and meetings, finally culminate into a fantastic two –day close-door workshop at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai. There, we had some of the best of ageing experts from India and the UK gathered under […]