An ambassador writes...
A new BBC Radio 4 series starting today - Parting Shots - reveals what Britain's top diplomats have really thought about the countries to which they were posted.
It features the valedictory despatches of ambassadors, their final message home in which they were traditionally allowed to express personal and pungent viewpoints. The programmes are based on extensive enquiries both in the National Archives for the older documents and also using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain more recent ones.
The series producer Andrew Bryson explains here the mix of intriguing and amusing discoveries about ambassadorial attitudes which he made through his persistent and thorough researches.
It's a good example of how freedom of information can be used to provide detailed insights into officialdom which would otherwise be impossible until much later after the event. (Declaration of interest: I'm the executive producer of the series).
The Foreign Office co-operated by disclosing some powerfully revealing material, although it also held some documents back on the grounds of protecting international relations (these refusals included Sir Christopher Meyer's valedictory from Washington in 2003 and Sir Roderick Lyne's from Moscow in 2004).
There are now some who say that the FOI Act means that diplomats may be less frank in future in expressing their opinions. These concerns are expressed in a later episode in the series by the former Foreign Office minister, Denis MacShane.
So if these fears prove true, what kind of material might no longer be committed to paper in an overseas post and sent back to London?
Here's one outspoken example of a valedictory despatch - divulged under FOI. It's from Sir Andrew Green, now chairman of the pressure group MigrationWatch, who in 2000 ceased to be Britain's ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
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I find it quite refreshing, not to say surprising, that mandarins have principles and that, when it no longer matters, they are prepared to express themselves.
Let us hope that the expensive and privileged Oxbridge education of these (mainly) men will prove amusing and distracting. The pity is, of course, that these lofty principles (and prejudices!) which in many cases are our latent National values get repressed until their expression becomes pointless!
For example: where was the British diplomat in Afghanistan that spoke up against this odious corrupt crook Karzai - it was fairly obvious to all impartial observers well before the 'election' that the whole thing was a farce - yet we lost members of our armed forces to support this farrago of a corrupt election.
The problem with 'diplomats' is that they do not know when to speak up! Long gone (I regret) is the time that diplomats conversed and joked in Latin - but to say what they do well after the event is very nearly hypocrisy - particularly when people have died as the result of their silence! (To speak truth unto Nations - even when the truth is unwelcome!!!!)
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We wouldn't want to interject honesty into political discussions...where might that lead. Foreign Offices, State Departments and Ambassadors have done little but stir up trouble and provide housing for spies. The tools are better but the intent hasn't changed in a thousand years. "national interest" is the excuse for any behavior that would not be accepted by the general public. Mainly public servants promoting the interest of commerical enterprises under the national flag and providing shelter for those who may have commited crimes in other coutries.
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