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Foreign affairs and diplomacy

What’s the Context? 22 October 1966: spy George Blake escapes from Wormwood Scrubs

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‘The sentence was such that it almost became a question of honour to challenge it . . . like a POW, I had a duty to escape.’[1] ‘Double Agent breaks out of jail’ On 11 November 2016, George Blake, the …

They Think it’s all Diplomacy: North Korea, the Foreign Office and the 1966 World Cup

‘In order to be a good footballer, you must run swiftly and pass the ball accurately’. Wise words indeed – especially when one considers that they were uttered not by Jose Mourinho or Arsene Wenger, but by Kim Il Sung, …

What’s the Context? 26 July 1956: Nasser announces the nationalisation of the Suez Canal

Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser returns to cheering crowds in Cairo after announcing the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, August 1956 (Public Domain)

The UK and the US shared common strategic interests in the region, but their analyses and policies were not identical and there were important differences in their tactical and diplomatic approaches’. (Chilcot Report on the Iraq enquiry, vol. I, p. …

Hugh O’Beirne and the sinking of HMS Hampshire: a diplomat remembered

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The death of Lord Kitchener, who drowned when HMS Hampshire sank just off the Orkney’s north-west coast on 5 June 1916, came as a profound shock to the nation. The Secretary of State for War was the public face of …

History’s Unparalleled Alliance: the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Windsor, 9th May 1386

Two red seals are attached to the Treaty of Windsor by strips of parchment

Winston Churchill in a speech in the House of Commons in October 1943 famously described the unique and ancient friendship between England and Portugal as an alliance “without parallel in world history”.[1] It is 630 years since a treaty of …

What’s the Context? 9 May 1956: Eden orders an enquiry into the disappearance of Commander ‘Buster’ Crabb

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It would not be in the public interest to disclose the circumstances in which Commander Crabb is presumed to have met his death. Mystery of the missing frogman Sixty years ago today, on 9 May 1956 the Prime Minister, Sir …

British diplomacy and the independence of South America

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The independence of many South American countries from Spanish and Portuguese rule followed uprisings and wars from 1806 to the mid-1820s. British diplomacy in the independence of South America was, generally, about trade. Britain was an ally with Portugal and …

What’s the Context? 21 March 1946: Frank Roberts’ ‘Long Telegram’

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No one who has served in Moscow can ever be quite the same person again . . . Those who have had this experience may be pardoned if they think that, among themselves, they can speak a language and carry …