Yesterday evening in a busy hotel lobby I talked with the head of the UK's Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Sir Simon Fraser. Fraser is UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond's senior adviser, and they are in Sydney for the annual AUKMIN talks, which involve foreign and defence ministers from both countries.
We discuss the fight against ISIS, the state of UK-Russia relations in light of Moscow's aggression against Ukraine, and lastly I ask about the AUKMIN talks themselves. As you can see, the Joint Ministerial Statement from the talks runs to just six paragraphs, so I asked Sir Simon whether there is really enough substance to sustain an annual ministerial dialogue: