Just when I thought that there was nothing new to say on the subject of Leaked Ambassadors, along come two of them.

First, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles is said to have described the Western mission in Afghanistan as ‘doomed‘.

The source? A French diplomatic telegram leaked in Paris, said to be recording the French Ambassador’s conversation with Sherard in Kabul.

So, did Sherard say that or not? The fact that the French have reported this conversation and may have ‘sexed it up’ for their own purposes gives the FCO plausible deniability, as per the Times report:

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that the cable did not accurately reflect the views of the Ambassador. It is understood that the meeting between Sir Sherard and the French envoy did take place, but that the French account of is regarded in Whitehall as a gross distortion.

Although if so, this is a bit odd:

“The trouble with the British Ambassador is that he is always at the high end of gloom and doom when in fact it’s not that bad,” a diplomatic source said.

Whatever. Afghanistan has always been and will continue to be Very Tricky.

But that leak is eclipsed by this new one: HMA Washington’s ipsissima verba on the subject of B Obama, written as a top-level scene-setting briefing for Obama’s visit to the UK in July, and intended not to be leaked:

This letter contains sensitive judgements. Please limit copying, and protect the contents carefully

Sir Nigel Sheinwald gave No 10 (and now the rest of us) an elegant Mandarinish analysis of Obama’s life and views. Read the whole thing, as examples of this particular genre of senior civil service work are rarely seen when the issues are still current.

A word on the point of such pre-visit scene-setters.

They serve two main functions:

  • to ‘sum up’ the visitor, his views and his prospects, so that when he walks into the room the PM has a good sense of what to expect
  • to highlight areas where the subject of the text may want to do things differently and (perhaps) cause us to rethink some of our core positions

But there is also a tendency to play to the likely prejudices of the recipients. Thus here Sir Nigel does not bring up Obama’s friendly relationship with unrepentant ultra-leftist ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers.

Partly no doubt because this fact is inconvenient to the mainstream media ‘narrative’ of Obama which we all know and love. And maybe too because there is not much to be gained in alerting a Labour Government to the dangers of associating with weirdo Marxist radicals from the 1960s/1970s?

The version published in the Telegraph looks to have been ‘topped and tailed’. It ends on a rather abrupt note, as if overall key Conclusion passages summing it all up had not been divulged?

The Sheinwald letter as we now see it therefore summarises Obama the Campaigner on many key issues for No 10.

But what it does not give is any view on the Number One Question, namely ‘cool’ Obama’s likely reactions and ability to cope in a Massive Crisis: what if there is another major terrorist attack on the USA, or if evidence emerges that Iran is seriously threatening a nuclear attack on Israel?

Not shared to the journalist with the rest of the text? A separate letter? Or just too politically sensitive to write down?

Thus, Questions.

Why was this letter leaked? And by whom?

Despite the stern caveat on the original it will have been copied pretty widely within senior Embassy circles in Washington and around No 10 and key Ministers/officials in Whitehall. So plenty of suspects’ computers to investigate, in case the topping and tailing was done on-screen rather than with scissors.

Possibilities include:

  • some zany effort by someone somewhere in the system to help or hinder Obama/McCain
  • someone disgruntled with some aspect of UK policy and/or Sheinwald himself, and wanting to stir up trouble
  • someone sharing the text with the Telegraph as a private favour, without laying down tight enough handling rules
  • or maybe there were tight rules but temptation proved too much for the Telegraph

I think the time has come to commission a new tie for the elite League of Leaked Ambassadors.

Something like this motif in lush silk should work.