21st July 2011
I spent Tuesday in Kecskemet, also known as the “Famous City”, the “City of Tolerance” (on account of the large number of churches in the centre) and, informally, the “Capital of Art Nouveau” – and there are certainly some splendid examples of secessionist architecture there. In addition to meeting the Vice Mayor (photo above), the […]
27th January 2011
Two senior figures in British politics were in Mumbai in January – Vince Cable and Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson and Peter Beckingham Two senior figures in British politics were in Mumbai in January – Vince Cable, Cabinet Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills, and Boris Johnson, The Mayor of London. They don’t […]
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29th December 2010
The traditional and the modern are about to come together at beautiful Godollo Palace, the venue for most of the Ministerial meetings under the Hungarian EU Presidency. I had not been to the Palace for some 20 years, when it was in ruinous condition. But last Friday the diplomatic corps were invited by Foreign Minister […]
17th December 2010
When the Lord Mayor of London visited Kyiv in September 2009 he drew attention to the immense expertise of British financial institutions in developing Public Private Partnership or PPP. This is an arrangement where a private organisation assumes the risk of financing and building anything from a bridge to a hospital on the basis of […]
27th November 2010
The Lord Mayor of London and Speaker of the House of Commons have now left Budapest! The Lord Mayor’s programme today included a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Navracsics, who is also Minister for Justice (to talk about proposed EU economic regulation). And a speech to British Chamber of Commerce members (including Hungarian companies) to […]
26th November 2010
The 683rd Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Michael Bear, is currently in Budapest with a party from the City. Rushing back from meetings in Brussels, I narrowly made it back to Ferihegy Airport just in time to greet him on arrival. The Lord Mayor tries to visit all countries taking on the EU Presidency just […]
23rd November 2010
I had an opportunity to see and hear about some of the colossal opportunities and developments outside Mumbai, in the State of Madhya Pradesh. The State, which straddles the centre of India, remains one of the poorest areas of the country, with high figures for incidents of malnutrition among children and low levels of income […]
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