An audience with Tom Fletcher

The Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs Cripwell host a number of guests at Government House throughout the year. Ambassadors, diplomats and royalty and even the occasional visiting author.

This is how the Literary Festival managed to condense the impressive career of Tom Fletcher so far.

Tom Fletcher is the Principal of Hertford College, Oxford University. He was previously the Foreign Policy Adviser to three UK Prime Ministers (2007-11) and the UK’s Ambassador to Lebanon (2011-15).

More recently he was a Visiting Professor at New York University (2015-20), advised the Global Business Coalition for Education, and chaired the International Advisory Council of the Creative Industries Federation. In 2018 he founded The Foundation for Opportunity which supports good people doing good things in public life.

His non fiction books include ‘The Naked Diplomat: Power and Politics in the Digital Age’ (Harper Collins, June 2016) and ‘Ten Survival Skills for a World in Flux’ (Harper Collins, February 2022). His fiction books include ‘The Ambassador’ (Canelo, August 2022) and ’The Assassin’ (Canelo, March 2024).

He presented the BBC series ‘The Battle for Liberal Democracy’ (2023), and led a review of British diplomacy for the UK Foreign Office in 2016. He has also authored reports on the future of the United Nations (for the UN Secretary General), and on the skills the next generation need to thrive in the 21st century.

On the 23rd September, Tom had been invited to take part in The Big Debate at The Ladies' College. ‘This house believes that on a small island like Guernsey, global issues are more important than local ones,’ was the motion discussed. Tom argued that Guernsey’s future lies in addressing global challenges such as technology, climate change and pandemics. He was supported in debate by Lower Sixth student and newly appointed Lieutenant-Governor's Cadet Eva Redelinghuys.

On the 24th September, Tom appeared at the Literary Festival where he was doing an audience in conversation with the Lieutenant-Governor. 

The Great Debate - pictures taken from the Ladies' College Facebook page.