Chapter two of Craig Murray’s book describes his pre-posting briefing rounds.

He heads for Eastern Department, effectively his ‘line management’ people. He finds it hard work:

The atmosphere in the department seemed to be unpleasant – heavy, pompous and serious. A pall of misery appeared to have settled.

I have a soft spot for Eastern Department, as I was there when it received the name.

Back in the mists of time (to be precise 1640) our Foreign Policy organised itself to deal with different parts of the world in endearingly simple ways. One Department of of State was Northern Department, covering great swathes of the globe north of the equator. The other was Southern Department, covering points south.

Northern Department eventually became the Foreign Office but an FO department with that historic name continued to operate until well after the Second World War, when a reorganisation created ‘Soviet Department’. Good riddance. Northern Department had dealt ingeniously with UK/Soviet policy in part by having various Marxists working in its ranks.

I was posted to Soviet Department as Deputy Head of Department in mid-1991 on returning from South Africa. I inherited a vast old ‘partners desk’ which had an electric switch by one’s knee – once upon a time the occupant of the desk could switch on a red light to alert others in the room that he was on the telephone to the Soviet Embassy, hence they should stop talking lest Secrets be Revealed. Cool.

Anyway, after the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991 we had to rename the department. It could not be ‘Russia Department’ as too many other countries were to be covered by it. Restoring the name Northern Department might provoke, hem, adverse media comment.

So Eastern Department it was, and is. I hope that that desk is still there.

Craig describes his various conversations there with two FCO colleagues whom I happen to know, mainly on Tashkent Embassy resources/management issues. Craig notes that he inherits a small and mainly junior UK-based team: only four FCO officers plus a Defence Attache.

There is a hint of a Problem with one of the FCO team. Craig (reasonably) expresses concern at the absence of a more senior political officer, but is more than confident that he will cope:

I was professionally very capable myself of a high volume of wide-ranging output.

Thereafter Craig meets some senior business people from British firms investing in Uzbekistan, feasts on yummy Uzbek plov with the Uzbek Ambassador in London, and has a pre-posting audience with Princess Anne and Prince Andrew (Note: trite moan about having to wear ‘fancy dress’ for the occasion).

Craig’s final pre-posting calls are on FCO Minister Mike O’Brien ("all haircut and presentation") and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who says:

"Whenever you get to … wherever it is you’re going … tell them I’m thinking about them."

That was the extent of my instructions.

Putting to one side Craig’s attempt (not it must be said totally unsuccessful) to portray his London interlocutors as largely uninterested in Uzbekistan, I find his account of these calls a bit strange.

Pre-posting Ambassadors are expected to work up their own pre-posting briefing round lists. Craig also had plenty of time in the margins of his months of Russian language training to see people.

So where are the calls on eg the FCO Human Rights and EU teams, HM Treasury, DTI, SIS, MOD, Cabinet Office, No 10 and so on? What about British human rights groups concerned about Uzbekistan? Uzbek dissident groups in London? Leading journalists and academics who cover the region? Did he pursue with FCO personnel people the question of the apparent poor performance of one of his future team?

Maybe he met some or all of these people and decided not to mention it in the book.

One way or the other, a key part of a new Ambassador’s role is to ascertain ‘what is out there’ in the UK in respect of the country and issues with which s/he will be dealing, and to spot potential allies and friends.

No evidence is presented by Craig that he did this. The impression he gives us is of meeting only a few cynical busy people who treat Uzbekistan as a far away country of which they know little, and care even less. Their problem, not his!

So to say dismissively that Jack Straw’s off-hand remark was "the extent of his instructions" is disobliging, if not untrue.

His detailed ‘instructions’ would have come from his many meetings round Whitehall.

If he had them.

Professional Judgement Rating: 5/10. Useful and blunt (if a touch dismissive) account as far as it goes of various significant briefing meetings, but no evidence presented that he did a full and comprehensive networking job.