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
3rd February 2013 British High Commission, Kingston, Jamaica
A few words for Human Rights
For 2013 Human Rights will continue to factor into most of my conversations. This realization is fueled in part by countless Jamaican news reports of children being murdered, or being made to work, or held in ramshackle prisons with adult offenders. Notwithstanding the moratorium, the death penalty remains on Jamaican law books. The high crime rate, extra […]
2nd February 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Robert Burns and Romania
Last Saturday some 170 people gathered at the Athenee Palace Hotel in Bucharest for Burns Night – an annual celebration for the Scottish community. Born on 25th January 1759, Robert Burns is Scotland’s national poet as well as a pioneer of the Romantic movement. Burns suppers are organised each year on or around the poet’s […]
1st February 2013 Vancouver, Canada
Dickens, Dancing and Development
As January ends, it is already too late for discussion of new year’s resolutions. For many of us, the quickly laid plans for health and financial prudence have already slipped away. But a recent collection of disparate events, which reminded me how fortunate I am to be doing this job, also left me with a […]
1st February 2013 Seattle, USA
The Brits are back in Seattle
After three and a half years of leading the British Embassy in Washington’s trade policy and business affairs team, I’ve taken up a new assignment. Still in the US, happily, and a lot closer to the mountains. Still has “Washington” in the address. Still working on prosperity, trade and investment. But on the other side […]
1st February 2013 Athens, Greece
Burns Night
In many of the countries I have worked around the world there has been an active Caledonian or St Andrew’s Society, run by those with full or sometimes tenuous Scottish heritage, but enjoyed by people of many nationalities. One of the highlights of my year whilst working abroad has been the annual St Andrew’s Day Ball, […]
1st February 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
CVM + IMF = 4%
There are two fundamental planks of reform in Romania, on which the Romanian authorities are engaged in commitments to the International Financial Institutions and to their EU partners – the Stand-By Agreement with the IMF (plus the World Bank and EU) and the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism for tackling corruption and judicial reform with the […]
31st January 2013 Montréal, Canada
A science talk-show on a crucial issue: Women in Science
Thursday January 24th was a very warm day at the McGill Faculty Club. The British Consulate-General in Montreal invited Fellows of the Royal Society of the UK and of the Royal Society of Canada to discuss their experiences as women scientist. Together with Ariane Lucas, our Public Affairs Officer, we were thrilled to organise this […]
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31st January 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
To give and to get
One of the objectives we have for British Week is to make some money for charity. Last year we were able to raise US$32,800 for Education for the Children and Hospitatlito Atitlan. You can see from the photos that the money raised made a real difference to those projects by equipping classrooms and helping buy […]
31st January 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Time for #Twiplomacy
Last week we hosted a seminar in Bucharest on social media for colleagues from Embassies across the region and London. The aim was to learn, discuss and share experience about the new opportunities and challenges that social media like Facebook and Twitter, blogging and YouTube, present for our work. This is a new and unfamiliar […]
31st January 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Homage to Cappadocia
A tear-drop forest of twisted rock-forms rears up, stretching into the distance. Each fantastic shape has been hollowed out over the millennia by unknown hands to form dwellings, monasteries or, between the 4th and 11th century, painted churches. Welcome to Cappadocia. We all know that Turkey teems with outstanding historic and tourist sites. Yet Cappadocia, […]