24th April 2012 Washington DC, USA
The following is a guest blog from Bradley Keelor. Brad is a Senior Science and Innovation Policy Advisor at the British Embassy in Washington. It was recently World Creativity and Innovation Week. This was started by a Canadian anthropologist in 2001 as a way to commemorate the birthday of Leonardo Da Vinci and generally celebrate […]
23rd April 2012 Washington DC, USA
I’m just three weeks into the Corporate Services role here and spent last week flying solo after a great handover from my predecessor, Alison, who is now destined for Uganda in the summer. It’s a busy agenda as expected, but made easier by a remarkable and supportive team from the very top downwards. But my […]
13th April 2012 Washington DC, USA
Today the US/UK Defence Trade Cooperation Treaty comes into effect. In a ceremony presided by Rose Gottemoeller, the acting US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, our two countries finalised an agreement originally signed five years ago to strengthen our mutual security and build our shared prosperity. British and American manufacturers […]
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11th April 2012 USA
Like a lot of people interested in US politics and economics, I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about the results of the last US census and the excellent analyses that demographers, political pundits and others have done on them. One thing that really strikes me is the projections of the US’s population out to […]
6th April 2012 Washington DC, USA
On our very first visit to DC, a chilly weekend last October, to scope out the city as our imminent home, we crawled jetlagged onto the metro at an unpleasant hour of the morning. It might have made sense to start house hunting, or to embark on some general meandering to get a sense of […]
5th April 2012 Washington DC, USA
And so I am just back from very sunny Boston. It was a day spent being grateful to people for tactfully ignoring my black eyes. It was also a day spent envying my partner, Layla, for having spent a summer working at Harvard when she was a medical student. Even in my very brief visit, […]
3rd April 2012 Washington DC, USA
When I saw my diary for last Wednesday, I realised that a snapshot of my activities that day would be the perfect way to answer that ubiquitous question posed by friends, family, old colleagues, and assorted others: “what do you actually do?” Business Minister Mark Prisk was visiting Washington and our plans for his visit […]
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20th March 2012 Washington DC, USA
On March 21st at 12:30 London time (8:30 on the East Coast), the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, will unveil his 2012 Budget to the British Parliament. The word ‘Budget’ comes from the French term ‘bougette’, meaning little bag. But rather than thinking about ‘little bags’, whenever I mention the Budget to American friends, they […]
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19th March 2012 Washington DC, USA
It was pretty much impossible to look at a newspaper, news programme, tweet or blog last week without being met by numerous photographs of David Cameron and Barack Obama sharing a joke, or their quotes about the essential relationship shared by the US and UK. They even wrote a piece together for the Washington Post. […]
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8th March 2012 Washington DC, USA
I’d like to draw your attention to the latest blog by our Head of Mission in Helmand, Michael O’Neill. The post covers Helmand Province on today, International Women’s Day. Helmand Province offers a microcosm of the wide range of conditions facing women and girls in Afghanistan. In many rural areas it’s hard for girls to […]