1st September 2013
Australia goes to the polls on 7 September. The key battleground is the sprawling suburbs of West Sydney, which contain 10% of Australia’s population and a number of marginal seats. I spent Saturday there to get a feel for the campaign on the ground. You quickly pick up the electoral buzz from the campaign posters […]
8th July 2013
There are not many weekends nowadays when I’m up until 2.00am two nights in a row. Well actually none. But this weekend was the exception, with the Lions/Wallabies end of tour party at Sydney’s Opera House and Andy Murray’s Wimbledon final. The Wallabies victory in Melbourne, levelling the series at 1:1, had set things up […]
2nd July 2013
Last week Shadow Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP, visited Australia as a guest of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Australian government arranged the programme for him, but we gave him an in-depth briefing at the High Commission, and I hosted a dinner to discuss foreign policy with MPs, officials […]
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15th April 2011
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd invited the diplomatic corps to visit his home state of Queensland to see how well it is recovering from the terrible January floods. I went with some 70 High Commissioners, Ambassadors and other diplomats. Having been up in Brisbane with William Hague shortly after the floods, it was good to return […]
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