17th August 2016 Skopje, North Macedonia
For me, most of August and September will be one massive nostalgia trip. Seven years ago I packed my bags and left the Foreign Office to join the team organising London 2012. I spent three years there on secondment as Head of International Relations. And then from July to September we put on the best […]
11th May 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
Grahame Greene’s novel about Geneva ignores it, focusing instead on the nasty foibles of the very rich. And if they mention it at all, modern novelists writing about Geneva use the UN at best as a backdrop for international intrigue but more often as a metaphor for international impotence. For someone preparing to take up […]
13th August 2014
The following is a guest blog by Steve Townsend, Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy to the Holy See On 13 August 1964, Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans made British judicial history, although not in a way they would have appreciated. They were the last people executed in the United Kingdom. Throughout the […]
29th November 2013 Ottawa, Canada
Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Andrée Carter, Director of the UK Collaboration for Development Science (UKCDS) to Canada. She came at our invitation, to participate in a panel entitled: The world in 2020: Three questions for internationalised science, at the Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC), held in Toronto. She preceded her visit with a short […]
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8th March 2013 Dublin, Ireland
I am delighted to introduce today’s guest blog by an old friend, Dorota Mitrus*, who made an important contribution to helping promote effective democratic participation in Poland post-1989 and is now engaged in promoting democracy and effective governance in many other countries. Her blog speaks for itself. What I would like to stress is that […]
19th November 2012 Dublin, Ireland
Friday was the International Day of Tolerance. To mark this occasion, we held a party in the Embassy, which also served as the launch event for a fabulous photo exhibition recalling the superb British and Polish performance at the London Paralympics. I underlined how important a role tolerance plays in any civilised society and how […]
22nd August 2012 Toronto, Canada
The Advisory Panel on Canada’s International Education Strategy wrapped up last week, tabling a 98-page report International Education: A Key Driver of Canada’s Future Prosperity. In it, the Panel sets out its vision for the Canadian education system (“to attract top talent and prepare our citizens for the global marketplace, thereby providing key building blocks […]
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17th April 2012 Ottawa, Canada
Prof. David Clary (his blog), Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) recently visited Ottawa, on the invitation of the Office of the Auditor General(@OAG_BVG) to participate in a Science Forum, looking at how science can be used to better inform policy, in times of austerity. Part of this involved discussions of how science advice to government […]
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24th February 2012 Nairobi, Kenya
In my opinion the London Conference on Somalia yesterday was a great success. In case you missed any of it then you can find full reports and links here. It was the biggest conference on Somalia, involving the greatest number of senior leaders, from as wide a range of countries and international organisations, as seen […]
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22nd September 2011
I have just returned from a short visit to London, where I took the opportunity to meet Chris Bain, the Director of CAFOD, the principal Catholic charity in England and Wales (its main partners in the United Kingdom are SCIAF in Scotland, and Trocaire in Northern Ireland – which also operates in the Republic of […]