Michael Maclay

Michael Maclay, diplomat, journalist and spy

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.'
• He 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 that paper's collapse Maclay was rapidly recruited to Robert Maxwell's new newspaper venture, The European.
• Returning to the Foreign Office, he was then Special Adviser to Douglas Hurd as Foreign Secretary, dealing mainly with the politics of the European Union and the Balkans.
• After signature of the Dayton Agreement he joined Carl Bildt the Swedish Conservative, High Representative for Bosnia, as his Special Adviser and Chief Spokesman.
• 'Educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Freiburg, he has been a diplomat, a journalist and a senior political adviser'
• 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.'
• 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.'

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).