18th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
This month in the UK we launched the ‘What Works’ Network – new centres of evidence to help ensure better decisions across £200 billion of public service spending. It’s the first time a government has set up such a model. The video launch at NESTA is well worth a look. The Network consists of two existing […]
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8th March 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Today is International Women’s Day, an annual event launched over a century ago, in 1910, to celebrate the social and economic achievements of women.
The situation for women since then has changed profoundly…
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7th March 2013
Paris, France
In the lead up to International Women’s Day on Friday, we are featuring the stories of women who work for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as guest posts across the FCO bloggers’ network. Kara Owen is my Deputy Head of Mission here in Paris and I’m delighted to have her as a guest blogger today […]
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6th March 2013
Paris, France
This week on the 8th of March, it’s International Women’s Day, and we are very active in the Embassy in celebrating it. There are two events in particular that I’ve been personally engaged with – and I bring to this a very passionate belief that organisations are better when we have more women in senior […]
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18th February 2013
Paris, France
All of us are looking for growth in our economies and the creation of jobs. From that point of view, it was very good news that President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union message, said that he was clearly in favour now of completing the work for a free trade commercial agreement between […]
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18th February 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
The Prime Minister’s speech at Davos, and the Chancellor’s article in yesterday’s Observer, describe how the UK is working with OECD experts to push reform of the international tax system – to reduce tax base erosion and the shifting of profits by global corporations. I remember being struck by this issue at an Economic Club lunch in Washington […]
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8th February 2013
Paris, France
One of the striking things about Britain and France is that our two societies are often dealing with very similar issues at the same time. There is a clear example of that this week where, in both the British Parliament and in the French National Assembly, the issue of gay marriage (or “mariage pour tous” […]
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24th January 2013
Paris, France
There is a lot happening in the world, and I wanted to talk today a bit about our support to France on Mali, and then a bit about Britain and Europe. Britain has fully supported the French military operation in Mali from the start. We entirely share France’s analysis that we can not allow Mali […]
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16th January 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Today saw the launch of a very significant new initiative by the OECD and WTO, called Trade in Value Added, or TiVA. Why is it attracting so much attention? Don’t we already have statistics on trade? We do, but the the way we’ve looked at trade statistics for years no longer necessarily reflects the way […]
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14th January 2013
Paris, France
I want to talk today about the events of the last few days in Africa, starting by saying that our thoughts go to the families of the French soldiers and the hostage who have lost their lives in Mali and in Somalia.
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