26th June 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
With names like Scott, Cameron, Macdonald, Ferguson and McKenzie, the MPs and Senators who organised last night’s Scottish Dinner in Australia’s Parliament House had a gleam in their eyes at the swirl of the bagpipes and the clink of the whisky glass. Some of them have more distant ancestral links to Scotland, like my own. […]
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30th April 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
It has been an extraordinary few years for the relationship between the United Kingdom and Ireland. When Prime Minister David Cameron and Taoiseach Enda Kenny met in London in March, they commented that relations between our two countries had never been better. That’s a bold statement to make. And yet it was confirmed earlier this […]
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7th March 2014
Beirut, Lebanon
In the 21st century we get angry about many small things: traffic jams, power cuts or a failed internet connection. We get plenty of opportunities for all three in Lebanon. But last Friday I joined an event about an issue worth getting really furious about. The Beirut Bar Association launched a Human Rights Institute booklet […]
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25th February 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Australia’s presidency of G20 this year means we’ll have lots of senior visitors. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney were in Sydney this weekend for the G20 Finance Ministers Meeting. It brought together ministers and central bankers responsible for 85% of the world’s economy. Mr Osborne […]
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29th January 2014
Ottawa, Canada
As a Brit abroad, one of the most frustrating urban myths I hear about the British economy is “Britain doesn’t really make stuff anymore does it?” Isn’t your economy based on the services industry, high tech, financial services etc?
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11th December 2013
New York, USA
Sometimes it takes seeing your own national customs through the eyes of another to recognise their strangeness. I was honoured to join Mayor Michael A. Nutter of Philadelphia on his trade delegation to London at the start of November, and one night, as we were having dinner at a riverside restaurant, there was a brilliant […]
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28th November 2013
Ottawa, Canada
I was at the beautiful Cumberland Lodge near Windsor, UK, last week for the 2013 Canada-UK Colloquium. The Colloquium is an annual event, taking place alternately in each country, bringing together British and Canadian parliamentarians, public officials, academics…
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9th October 2013
New Delhi, India
Yesterday the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Professor Peter Higgs from the University of Edinburgh and Professor François Englert from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. It was awarded for their work , in the 1960s, predicting the existence of the Higgs Boson. I’m not a physicist, so if you want to know […]
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19th August 2013
Kingston, Jamaica
I was struck by these words in the Independence Day message of the Governor General of Jamaica , Sir Patrick Allen. I had the honour of calling on Sir Patrick a few days later and asked him about this. He told me about the many examples of untapped excellence, skill, enthusiasm and goodwill which he […]
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1st August 2013
British High Commission, Kingston, Jamaica
Britain and Jamaica are long time friends, who partner on very visible technical and operational matters. But should you ask a random Jamaican about the function of the British High Commission in Kingston; the response will undoubtedly be something to do with visas. It has not gone unnoticed that since inception in 2003, visas to […]
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