Monday mornings are always busy, with the weekend’s media to catch up on, the week ahead to get my teeth into, and inevitably a few surprises thrown into the mix. And if that’s a typical Monday morning, today is a Monday morning on steroids. It’s not just starting this blog that’s atypical, either.
I’m just back from a week’s leave, which meant an early start to get through several hundred emails before the Ambassador’s 9.30 meeting, which sets the tone for the rest of the day. No Ambassador at today’s 9.30, of course. Our new boss, Anne Pringle, arrives in Moscow this afternoon to take up her post. The Russian media are already keen to get to know her – as one of the highest-profile Embassies in Moscow, a change of British Ambassador is always going to attract a lot of media attention.
There’s change afoot at Ministerial level, too. Caroline Flint is now ‘our’ Minister, with Jim Murphy moving on from Minister for Europe to become Secretary of State for Scotland. I wonder if he’ll take his blog with him?
Peter Mandelson’s appointment as Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has grabbed a fair share of this morning’s headlines here, no surprise given the size of the UK-Russia trade relationship. And I’m very excited by the new Department for Energy and Climate Change which brings two key issues, both for the government and for this Embassy, together under Ed Miliband.
Right, time for a quick coffee and then off to the airport, in case the Ambassador’s arrival turns into an impromptu media event. No wonder it’s easy to forget that this time on Friday I was in a café in a small town in Provence, reading the ‘paper with a citron pressé …
Posted at 11:44 06 October 2008 by James Barbour |
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