Date/Time: Tuesday 25 April 2023, 5.30pm

Venue: Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building, Newcastle University

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All our events remain free and open to all, but pre-booking is required. Bookings for this lecture will open at 10.00am on 18 April. To reserve your place click the booking link below or telephone our booking voicemail line 0191 208 6136.

Hosted by Dr Martin Farr

This event has been rescheduled and will now take place on Tuesday 25 April.

Britain prizes its ability to ‘punch above its weight’ in foreign affairs. Some dismiss this as delusional, post-imperial nostalgia. A former UK Ambassador argues that Britain has been influential, but this has often delivered negative outcomes: from undermining the UN over Kosovo and Libya, to the provision of false intelligence justifying the invasion of Iraq. Therefore, the broken international order of 2022 owes much to Britain’s lack of strategy and institutional weakness.

Biography

After studying history at university, Arthur Snell served in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1998 - 2014, in a variety of overseas postings including Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan. From 2011 - 2014 he was the British High Commissioner (Ambassador) to Trinidad and Tobago. Since 2014 he has worked as a consultant and advisor on foreign policy issues to a range of governments and corporations. He is the host of the hit geopolitics podcast Doomsday Watch. How Britain Broke the World, published in 2022 by Canbury Press, is his first book.