Michael Maclay

Michael Maclay, diplomat, journalist and spy

Michael Maclay is former Director of Hakluyt and former Foreign Office official.

Career

As has been noted in Private Eye, Maclay, worked on Weekend World at London Weekend Television (LWT) under John Birt and Peter Mandelson.

A career Foreign Office official, he spent 'eight years a career diplomat, serving in Lagos, the British Mission to the United Nations, and in the Foreign Office.' Maclay then left the diplomatic service for a media career, spending eight years in the media, first at LWT and then, with David Lipsey, as a founding figure of the Sunday Correspondent. After the paper's collapse Maclay was rapidly recruited to Robert Maxwell's new newspaper venture, The European. He then returned to the Foreign Office, before being appointed Special Adviser to Douglas Hurd as Foreign Secretary, dealing mainly with the politics of the European Union and the Balkans. Maclay then joined Carl Bildt the Swedish Conservative, High Representative for Bosnia, as his Special Adviser and Chief Spokesman.

McLay was also an early member of BAP and was director of Hakluyt: the strategic intelligence firm, many of whose directors were formerly senior figures in MI6. between 1 Jan 1998-30 Jun 2002. He joined the Citizenship Foundation, a British charity which encourages active and effective citizenship, became chairman in 2000 and retired from the board in 2013, he is on the Advisory Board of the British American Project.' and he is Senior Adviser to the Franco-British-German Club of Three, Maclay 'has been closely involved with the Club of Three since helping Lord Weidenfeld to set it up in 1995/6.'

Education

• 'Educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Freiburg'

Maclay at a reception in honour of Douglas Hurd at the German Embassy in London, 24 May 2005

Affiliations

• Citizenship Foundation, a Trustee of the Citizenship Foundation since 1993, and took over the Chair from Andrew Phillips in 2000
• He is now Executive Chairman of the strategic consultancy Montrose Associates - which has links with his former colleagues [[Douglas Hurd] and Carl Bildt
• Senior Adviser to the Franco-British-German Club of Three,
• A member of the Advisory Board of the British American Project.
• Former Director of Hakluyt

Publications

His publications include Multi-Speed Europe (Chatham House, 1992), Maastricht Made Simple (The European 1993), and the Pocket History of the European Union (Sutton 1998).