I liked Clare Short when I first met her in Bosnia a couple of years later. Her febrile anti-Americanism aside, she was tough-minded, down-to-earth and perspicacious on Bosnian issues.

Why did someone as smart as Clare Short get that letter to the Zimbabwe government so wrong?

Let’s look at the context.

In November 1997 New Labour were settling down after their landslide election win.

The old Overseas Development Administration had been hived off from the FCO to create a new International Development Department (DFID) . It was full of zealous officials thrusting to show how neo-socialist development policies could ‘eradicate’ world poverty under DFID’s brilliant leadership, with a bit of help from Clare and Gordon. And to show how they could brush aside wimpy/fusty FCO advice on how to deal with foreigners.

Clare Short herself was unlikely to be over-impressed by what the Conservatives may or may not have promised Mugabe by way of land reform support.

Plus Mugabe came from the nationalist/socialist/Africanist tendency of African liberation movements, not the Soviet-led communist tendency: he was not "one of us" in Labour Party terms.

On the substance, New Labour at home positioned themselves as "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". Why not also be "tough on underdevevelopment in Africa, tough on the causes of underdevelopment in Africa"? This meant having little sympathy for weirdo Mugabe policies likely to make Zimbabwe’s position worse, not better.

Thus the scene was set for clever, cocky officials to serve up a draft letter from the Secretary of State to the Mugabe government in Harare which proved just how tough and confident New Labour (and New DFID) would be.

And this is what they did, I suspect loftily not bothering to run it past the fuddy-duddy FCO in London and/or the High Commission in Harare to check tone and wisdom alike.

Thus are far-reaching bureaucratic blunders made.

Did this letter cause the ensuing national economic collapse and the thousands of deaths and injuries which will leave Zimbabwe limping badly for decades to come?

No.

But was it a piece of startling incompetence which made a difficult situation much worse?

Yes.

Clare Short signed this letter but forgot or ignored a Deep Rule of Diplomacy: "it is not what you say – it’s what they hear".

Harare heard ‘rude and patrionising’. This allowed the most extreme members of the Mugabe elite to portray their stupid greedy policies as a natural pan-African response to British in-bred neo-colonialist racism.

Memo to next British government:

If you win a serious election victory, do not expect foreigners to be as excited about it and your new policies as you are.

Be Bold. But Think.

And on day one put a firm instruction round Whitehall that no (no) policy-significant message from a Minister to another capital gets issued without it first being run past the in-country Embassy or High Commission, to check that your best intentions won’t be spoiled by getting the tone all wrong. 

"It’s not enough to be right. You also need to be convincing."