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
4th March 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
Powerful Women
It’s not often that you go to an event at the UN and end up staying much longer than intended. Usually it’s the other way round. But this week’s high level panel on the ‘power of empowered women’ was one of the best UN discussions I’ve seen and a fitting prelude to international women’s day […]
4th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
My TV interview: social media, freedom of speech and football
I was privileged at the weekend to be interviewed on Kanal 24 by well-known Turkish journalist Özay Şendir (in Turkish). We covered lots of topics including use of social media, Cappadocia, trade and investment, freedom of expression and, inevitably, football (my Istanbul team, by the way, is Kasımpaşa). http://youtu.be/Th9Lk78tdjo
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3rd March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Avalon: From Excalibur to Aerospace Defence Sales
Avalon is not just the title of a 1980s Roxy Music album. It’s also an airport in Melbourne which hosts an important aerospace and defence show every two years. That’s quite fitting really as, in Arthurian legend, Avalon is the mythical place where King Arthur’s sword Excalibur was forged, so the name has a longstanding […]
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1st March 2013 Washington DC, USA
Science that helps keep us safe
On Wednesday evening we gave a reception at the British Embassy for scientists, soldiers and senior government officials from the US and the UK. The event was organised around a workshop presided by Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman of King’s College, London and Professor Eli Berman of UC San Diego, with the support of Research Councils […]
1st March 2013 Tripoli, Libya
Friends of Yemen – and Lancaster House
I wrote in my introductory blog (a little tentative as I was learning how to manage the software) that I would offer some more personal views. However, I’d like to pick up first on the theme that I mentioned before, the Friends of Yemen meeting in London, a week from now. People often ask me […]
1st March 2013 Ottawa, Canada
St David’s Day: Welsh-Canadian connections
It’s well known that the Year of the Dragon is one of the luckiest years in the Chinese calendar; to the Welsh, every year is the year of the dragon, and the red dragon proudly adorns the Flag of Wales. But today is a particularly special day in the Welsh calendar – St David’s Day…
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1st March 2013 Beirut, Lebanon
Britain’s Education Offer to Lebanon, and Speechmaking by Twitter
Yesterday was our ‘Education, Education, Education’ Day. I met the prizewinners of our competition for English teachers, including an inspirational administrator from Nahr el Bared Palestinian refugee camp, whose winning lesson plan was based on fish and chips. She is helping even those living in extreme desperation to enjoy and unlock English. But the day […]
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1st March 2013 London, UK
A historic victory for common sense
Fishermen going out in all kinds of weather, catching healthy fish and then throwing up to two-thirds of them back into the sea, dead or dying: a wasteful, immoral policy that angered anyone who cares about conservation. It was a practice that never made sense, and this week it was agreed that it should stop. […]
1st March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Personal Best
The talk last week was all about PBs or “personal bests”. Best of what? We often make up “catch phrases” – or “модное слово” (modnaye slova). They are not always easy to understand. By “personal best”, we mean “personal best times” or “личный рекорд” (leechni record) in Russian and “асабісты рэкорд” (asabisty record) in Belarusian. […]
28th February 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
St David’s Day: my Welsh great-grandfather
Here are some things you can do to celebrate St David’s Day, the national day of Wales, on 1 March: read this blog about my Welsh great-grandfather, John Derfel. Includes a beautiful old picture and links to the Welsh- and English-language Wikipedia entries of his Welsh nationalist father, Robert Jones Derfel; check out the Welsh Flag which […]
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