Helen McCarthy
Researcher
Helen joined Demos in September 2002 as a researcher.Her research interests are in the area of gender and race equality, community development, and public services reform. She is co-author of Inside Out: Rethinking Inclusive Communities (February 2003) and London Calling: how mobile technologies will transform the capital (October 2003). She is currently managing a new project on social inclusion in partnership with the WRVS.Helen is co-founder of Thinkingwomen, a...
at 7:33pm
on Monday, 20th June 2005
The Guardian today carried this interview with former British diplomat Carne Ross, who quit his post last year out of disgust at the government's shenanigans over WMD and is now selling his services freelance through a new consultancy called Independent Diplomat. The idea is that governments, NGOs and corporations in need of a bit of impartial advice in those tricky international situations can call up Carne and his friends who will pour diplomatic oil on the troubled waters.
I caught Carne giving a seminar when I was out at Harvard - he was working at the UN mission at the time and seemed to be spending most of his time arguing with Iraqi officials over the placing of commas in documentation on Sanctions. I'm not surprised that he's decided he can better serve humanity from outside the FCO - but his bailing out doesn't bode well for the future of British diplomacy. It may no longer be cocktails at Marrakesh, but we somehow managed to 'punch above our weight' through decolonisation, the Cold War and the first Gulf crisis. Has the experience of the second Gulf war proved Britain's irrelevance once and for all? And can we expect to see more 'independent' diplomats sitting round the table in the future?
The Guardian today carried this interview with former British diplomat Carne Ross, who quit his post last year out of disgust at the government's shenanigans over WMD and is now selling his services freelance through a new consultancy called Independent Diplomat. The idea is that governments, NGOs and corporations in need of a bit of impartial advice in those tricky international situations can call up Carne and his friends who will pour diplomatic oil on the troubled waters.
I caught Carne giving a seminar when I was out at Harvard - he was working at the UN mission at the time and seemed to be spending most of his time arguing with Iraqi officials over the placing of commas in documentation on Sanctions. I'm not surprised that he's decided he can better serve humanity from outside the FCO - but his bailing out doesn't bode well for the future of British diplomacy. It may no longer be cocktails at Marrakesh, but we somehow managed to 'punch above our weight' through decolonisation, the Cold War and the first Gulf crisis. Has the experience of the second Gulf war proved Britain's irrelevance once and for all? And can we expect to see more 'independent' diplomats sitting round the table in the future?
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