25th April 2014 Washington DC, USA
One of the hardest things I have to do is explain my job. I work on Asia at the British Embassy in Washington DC, and “why?” is the most common question. And, particularly from Americans, “But the UK isn’t a Pacific nation, you haven’t got any skin in the game.” But the simple answer is […]
5th January 2012 Toronto, Canada
In a speech earlier this week, Universities and Science Minister David Willetts laid out the government’s ambition to make the UK “the best place in the world to do science.” However, he offered no new funding or support and spoke mostly about broad aims for growth. There were eight principal points from the speech. The […]
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17th April 2011
Ambassadors are called on to make many speeches. I recently calculated that in the course of the previous month I had made some 50 – ranging from brief remarks in English to about 30 minutes in Hungarian; and at formal, informal and largely fun events. The subject matter covered a wide field too – from […]
31st March 2011
I’ve been following with interest the debate around the recent closure of a Ukrainian newspaper, the Gazeta po-Kievski. It’s an important issue. The newspaper, which has existed for many years, was closed down on 11 March. One explanation of the closure is that it had been losing money and was uneconomic. Proponents of free speech, […]
17th January 2011
In a week where The Social Network, the film about the creation of the Facebook website, has been dominating the Golden Globe awards in the US, it’s great to see politicians uniting to reinforce the freedom of information in Ukraine. On 13 January the Rada adopted two important laws on access to public information. The […]