Tag: G8

3rd April 2013 Washington DC, USA

Africa, Texas

It is a warm morning, and I’m standing in a crowd of Africans. Many of the women are in brightly coloured dresses; the men sport a variety of styles of headdress. A minibus pulls up and we squeeze more of us on-board than I thought possible. As we’re about to shut the door someone leans […]

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2nd April 2013 Washington DC, USA

by Andrew Preston

Development Counsellor

Learning from the UK: A confession from a development professional

I don’t give as much money to good causes as I should. For someone who works in international development and who feels strongly that we need a joint, all-out effort to end poverty, that’s a pretty stark admission. Given my own failings, I can only say hats off to the UK Government for maintaining its […]

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18th February 2013 Paris, France

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by Peter Ricketts

Ambassador to France from February 2012 to January 2016.

Creating growth and jobs in our economies

Sir Peter Ricketts, British Ambassador to 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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21st January 2013

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by Greg Dorey

Diplomat

Busy January…

The first weeks of 2013 were some of the busiest ever for our Embassy. Here are just a few of the highlights, which show the wide variety of our work. G8 1st January marked the start of the UK G8 Presidency, which I blogged about last week. We created a twitter account @G8 for anyone […]

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3rd January 2013

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by Greg Dorey

Diplomat

UK 2013: G8 Presidency

This time last year, the UK was looking forward to Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and hosting the Olympics and Paralympic Games. I think most people would agree that they went tremendously well. 2013 promises to be busy in a different way, not least because the UK is taking on the Presidency of the G8. […]

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6th December 2012 Washington DC, USA

by Peter Westmacott

Former Ambassador to the United States of America

Rethinking Development

Back in the days when tweeting was what birds did, a cloud was something in the sky, an app was what you sent to the university admissions office, and Google was simply a misprint for the word which means 10100, who’d have thought that mobile phones could improve the daily lives of the world’s poorest […]

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26th November 2012 Paris, France

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by Peter Ricketts

Ambassador to France from February 2012 to January 2016.

The UK and the EU budget

A European Flag and the Union Jack hang in front of the Justus Lipsius, the European Union's headquarters building in Brussels. GERARD CERLES/AFP/Getty Images

I want to talk to you about two things this week. First of all, the European Union budget. You may have seen in the press last week, in the run up to the European Council at the end of the week, a lot of stories suggesting that Britain was isolated. I saw one headline in […]

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21st November 2012

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by Paul Johnston

Ambassador to Ireland

Trade, tax, transparency: the UK G8 agenda

Next year Britain chairs the G8, the group of the world’s most developed Western economies. So what you might ask? Some people ask: does the G8 still matter, when we have a G20, embracing also the emerging powers, including Brazil, India and China? The UK’s answer is “Yes”. The G8 is a group of like-minded […]

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