4th July 2016 Ottawa, Canada
A diplomatic life is often one of contrasts. One year you can be working on climate change, another you’re promoting human rights in North Africa. That’s what makes this career so varied and challenging.
26th May 2016 Calgary, Canada
I’ve always wanted to walk the red carpet at a film premiere, and within days of arriving in Calgary I had my chance.
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11th May 2016 Vancouver, Canada
It defies logic. Every sensible instinct tells me it should be impossible. At almost 73 metres it’s longer than an ice hockey rink, it’s four times the height of my house (and I don’t live in a bungalow) and it carries over 500 passengers (plus luggage). Staring at it through the window of Vancouver International […]
22nd April 2016 Vancouver, Canada
April 23rd is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Few of us would dispute that he was a great playwright, few except perhaps Grade 8 students all over the world being forced to study symbolism in Macbeth or how to write iambic pentameter. But why is it Shakespeare we still celebrate? Why him and not […]
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8th February 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
Last week’s conference in London did not solve the Syrian refugee crisis. That requires an end to the conflict. The suspension of the peace talks in Geneva last week shows we’re not even at the end of the beginning of that process, as Churchill might have said. But London did some important things. It raised […]
28th January 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
No other international gathering attracts such mythology. The place where the world’s economic elite co-opts its political leadership. Or the best place in the world to discuss and solve global problems. The arguments for and against Davos rage every year. But it’s as popular as ever. BIG SHORT Just before this year’s Davos gathering, Oxfam […]
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22nd December 2015 Calgary, Canada
I was very excited and honoured to be nominated by the British Consulate-General in Calgary to represent Canada at the Week of Women in London.
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11th December 2015 Montreal, Canada
The climate change conference in Paris wrapped up today. Over the past two weeks there has been an array of commitments by governments around the World, including the UK’s, to tackle the climate change phenomenon and reduce the emissions that contribute to it. But what action are we all going to take as individuals?
7th December 2015 Montreal, Canada
Like a supersonic race car, sometimes time really flies.
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17th November 2015 Montreal, Canada
Inspiring, fascinating, stunning, challenging, desolate – just some of the adjectives that my trip to the far North of Quebec conjured up. The visit was my first to the region and was organised for the diplomatic corps by Quebec’s Ministry for International Relations, hosted by the foreign minister Christine St. Pierre. The destination for our […]
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