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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
15th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Turkey, Iceland, press freedom, Google
What links Turkey, Iceland, press freedom and Google? My recent blog “World Press Freedom Index: Turkey” was the most-read blog I have written since coming to Turkey. So I was interested to see reports recently about the balance which all countries must strike between media freedoms; genuine security concerns; and ensuring that the extent to […]
15th March 2013 Windhoek, Namibia
Celebrating the Commonwealth in Namibia
This week is Commonwealth Week – which kicked off with Commonwealth Day on Monday 11 March.To mark the event officially, I joined the other High Commissioners accredited to the Republic of Namibia to travel to State House to deliver Her Majesty the Queen’s annual Commonwealth Message to President Hifikepunye Pohamba. The theme of this year’s […]
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15th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Gas fields, gels and gin – mixing it with the PM’s visit
The Prime Minister’s visit to India in February set a number of firsts: the first by a British PM to Mumbai for 20 years, the first by a PM to Amritsar, and the first to India (or anywhere) to be joined by over 120 businesspeople. The size of the business group set us in Mumbai […]
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14th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
British Week 2013 – we will rock you Guatemala!
The unofficial anthem of the London Olympics became our unofficial anthem for British Week 2013. As we proved that music is Great Britain by showcasing some of the best of British music via a Queen tribute band and a charity dinner with everything from Rolling Stones to Coldplay. But regular readers will know that British […]
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14th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
British Week 2013 – we will rock you Guatemala!
British week 2013 – we will rock you Guatemala! The unofficial anthem of the London Olympics became our unofficial anthem for British Week 2013. As we proved that music is Great Britain by showcasing some of the best of British music via a Queen tribute band and a charity dinner with everything from Rolling Stones […]
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14th March 2013 Nairobi, Kenya
Giving voice to Somalia’s silent majority
International Women’s Day is a global opportunity to celebrate and promote the rights of women. It is a chance for all of us, men and women, to unite under a single, common aim – gender equality. This is particularly pertinent in Somalia. Everyone in Somalia has suffered from decades of often unrelenting conflict. But Somalia’s […]
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14th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
We welcome Pope Francis
It is the dream of every Ambassador to the Holy See to be in post for a Conclave. No one with a sense of history or occasion can possibly be disappointed by the event. There can be no election in the world that is held under conditions of such intense media scrutiny, and yet also […]
14th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Video blog by Minister for Europe in Bucharest
Minister for Europe David Lidington visited Romania recently, as I was telling you in my last post. I invited him to do a short video blog about the visit and his vision for the partnership between the UK and Romania. You can also check my Twitter account for a brief recap of the Minister’s key […]
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14th March 2013 Toronto, Canada
Scott and the Machine
This is a guest post by Dr. Srivas Chennu of the University of Cambridge, a nueroscientist who visited Canada last year as part of a SIN project. Scott and the Machine: International collaborations in the study of disorders of consciousness It was a busy 2012 for Scott Routley. For a while last year, he shot […]
13th March 2013 Washington DC, USA
Trade Partnerships – a stimulus everyone can agree on
My Ambassador had an op-ed in op-ed in USA Today last week on the case for the EU and the US striking a free trade deal. I thought I would develop some of the economic arguments underpinning the strong case he made. Economists often propound the benefits of free trade in terms of numbers, sometimes […]
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