16th June 2017 Kolkata, India
Sometimes a name sticks. We’ve just had elections in Britain. As a general rule, British government officials should not show bias to any political party, because we serve our political leaders when they hold government office, and not in their political party role. In the period between the announcement of elections and when they are […]
26th February 2015
This week, the Pope and the senior members of the Roman Curia are away on spiritual retreat. There are not many governments that take all their senior members away from the fray of the day-to-day for a whole week of reflection, and even here the Blackberries and smart-phones may not be entirely switched off. But […]
16th January 2015 Beirut, Lebanon
All over the Foreign Office network, we draw on advice and analysis from our brilliant locally engaged staff. One of our colleagues here, Nadim Zaazaa, is leaving us to work on an exciting project – the UK-Lebanon Tech Hub. See here for more details. He shared with me some parting thoughts about the Middle East, […]
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18th June 2012
Recent media comment on the Vatican and the Holy See has been dominated by speculation relating to the ‘Vatileaks’ scandal, or events at the IOR, the so-called ‘Vatican Bank’. This is unfortunate. Whatever the substance behind such stories, and however fascinating, there is a great deal more to the work of the global Catholic Church, […]
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