Andy Pryce

The Listening Project

The Listening Project is a documentary film that examines what a range of people around the world think of America.

I suspect a similar project on the UK would produce a range of results (I am tempted to conduct one around DC some time soon). The question for diplomats like myself is whether a mixed opinion of my country amongst the public at large overseas makes it more difficult to project soft power. It is tempting to say yes, of course. But the public at large in a number of countries are either disassociated or not interested in all but the most crucial foreign policy decisions. Simon Anholt gave his thoughts in the Foreign Office's recent publication on public diplomacy.

Posted at 09:58 21 October 2008 by Andy Pryce  |  Comments[5]

Exchange, exchange, exchange

A number of Embassy colleagues attended a workshop at the Brookings Institution over the summer that looked at shared transatlantic policy priorities and public diplomacy. The workshop concluded that there would be most benefit from Europe and the US working together to strengthen the systematic acquisition of political capital and and trust through young leadership programmes, educational and proffesional exchanges and international public events on shared concerns.

Gordon Brown wrote on this theme during his April visit to the US. It would take be some time to record all the misconceptions that I held about the US before I came to live here as a 21 year old junior diplomat. My experiences have convinced me of the value that exchanges can have. This year's class of Marshall Scholars has just headed off to the UK.  The British Council network of young leaders, TN2020, is about to have its first summit in Dublin and Belfast. Over the coming months I will be looking for opportunities widen UK and US exchanges - I have been talking to a few think-tanks about how to do this. I would be very interested to hear the views and ideas of readers. 

Posted at 16:44 30 September 2008 by Andy Pryce  |  Comments[2]

Google, the Queen and profile

It has been reported that The Queen will visit Google's UK headquarters next month.
 
It is tempting to write a long post about misconceptions and stereotyping of the UK as some sort of heritage park. Suffice to say that this story covers two key selling points for the UK: (i) how web savvy and innovation oriented us Brits now are and (ii) how the UK is Europe's number one destination for inward investment; businessmen are not generally known for making decisions on the basis of heritage. Great to see that Google have staff in the UK. David Miliband has frequently spoken of how he sees the UK acting as a global hub.
 
I would love to hear the perceptions that our readers have of the UK, its policies and how they see our role in the 21st century.

Posted at 11:00 14 September 2008 by Andy Pryce  |  Comments[1]