Member of Parliament for South Shields
Latest Speeches
Green Peace: Energy, Europe and The Global Order
London School of Economics
Ralph Miliband Lecture Series
7th May 2008
It is a great honour to be speaking at the LSE. To do so in a lecture series in memory of my father’s contribution to the School is poignant and a little ironic. Poignant because my dad is not here to listen. Ironic because his view of the School was a mixture of fondness for the people and frustration with the institution. His view of the Labour Party was also a mixture – not of fondness and frustration but frustration and despair. So the idea that his son would be speaking at LSE as Labour Foreign Secretary would have summoned pride and prejudice in equal measure.
My dad always described himself as a socialist, but also a teacher. When people tell me that his books made a difference to them it gives me huge pride. But they also tell me they remember his classes. As a teacher he was determined to engage the minds of his students. Perhaps surprisingly for someone of strong, in fact very strong, political views, he went out of his way to talk up and discuss alternatives to his own point of view.
From Global Empire to Global Hub
Easter Banquet
Mansion House
London
2nd April 2008
Mr Lord Mayor,
Your Excellencies,
Aldermen,
Mr Recorder,
Sheriffs,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great honour for my wife and I to be with you for this year’s Easter Banquet.
To the diplomats gathered here from around the world, I want you to know that we value your cooperation, your friendship, your advice, your partnership – and we even, up to a point, value your criticisms as well.
To the representatives of the City of London I say thank you for your hospitality, and thank you for the contribution you make not just to the economic vibrancy of our country but also through your philanthropy to its social wealth as well.
To both of you I want to offer a simple message. The City of London was built on a global British Empire; it has been reinvented as a global hub. Our foreign policy was framed in the 18th century for a global British Empire. For the future I believe we must become a global hub.
FCO's 2007 Human Rights Report
London
25th March 2008
Welcome to the launch of the FCO's 2007 Annual Report on Human Rights. For a number of reasons, this is a good moment to take stock of the global struggle to advance universal human rights, and the British government's contribution to that struggle.
The historian Arnold Toynbee said the twentieth century would be remembered not for political conflicts or technical inventions, but as an age when people dared to think of the health of the whole human race as a practical objective.
This year we mark that moment of daring: the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Over the past sixty years, political ideologies have come and gone. Empires have crumbled. Global politics has been reshaped. Yet the Declaration lives on. It is today the cornerstone for much of international human rights law. Its ideas have influenced the thinking of generations, from American civil rights activists, to the champions of gay rights and those who brought down the Berlin Wall. I pay tribute to the millions of people, leaders and led, who have kept the flame of freedom alive, never more so than today.
FCO Leadership Conference
Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre,
London
4th March 2008
My speech today is about how we build an organisation fit for 2020. How we maintain our position as one of the best, if not the best diplomatic services in the world. The starting point must be to understand how the world is changing over the next decade.
Globalisation and interdependence already define our age. So familiar are they as concepts that they almost wash over us without arresting our attention. But the implications remain profound. Nations' fortunes are intertwined as never before. Their national interests are increasingly aligned. We cling to the notion of sovereignty, yet all the time we are interfering in each other's affairs. The shared interests between nations in financial stability, a stable climate, and nuclear non-proliferation drive our foreign policy.