Craig Murray has graciously has accepted my proposal of a public debate – venue and format to be agreed.

He also rightly has pointed out that I never finished reviewing his book Murder in Samarkand including the key passages about his head-on collision with the FCO over torture and the War on Terror.

I started reviewing his book chapter by chapter to explore Craig’s considered account of his ambitions and problems as HM Ambassador in Tashkent to explore what it tells us about professional diplomatic technique and the moral dilemmas which arise in this profession. Craig’s is such a high profile, interesting and provocative case that it deserves some special attention.

All my subsequent postings about the book and some others with a Craig Murray angle are accessible here. 

For a very different (more thoughtful and philosophical, less folksy and coarse) book on the subject of diplomacy written by a UK diplomat who resigned in protest over the Iraq invasion, read Carne Ross: Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite

So, on we go in Craig’s book to Chapter 8: The Embassy.

Craig describes how he meets some beautiful women in the bar round from his new Residence and muses on whether ‘on his travels’ he has been abusing former girlfriends who, perhaps, wanted him only because he was much wealthier than they were:

Is consent the only criterion, or do you have to consider the motives behind agreement? On the other hand, have not wealth and authority always attracted women to men? The question troubled me, and that conversation with those Uzbek girls resulted in a distinct change in my social behaviour…

Thank goodness for that.

Craig is summoned to the MFA to meet Foreign Minister Komilov who takes up in a measured way Craig’s public criticisms of the Uzbekistan human rights record in his recent speech. They have an exchange in businesslike terms, with Craig pressing the case for free expression and Komilov saying that Uzbekistan is not the UK but welcomes dialogue.

Craig reports this meeting by telegram. He gives us a little homily on the genre:

FCO telegrams are an art form in themselves. They are normally beautifully phrased and say very little … with an extra emphasis on special pleading on behalf of the host government. My telegrams were so different they were attracting real attention.

Let’s pass over the snide and (worse) untrue dig at his colleagues. His telegrams did have some extra zip, and I (as HM Ambassador in Belgrade) was one of the colleagues who sent him an email of congratulations after one of his early efforts. I also sent him another one a while later saying that his telegrams were sounding like a stuck record and he risked losing impact. As indeed turned out to be the case.

Craig’s reputation in Tashkent is (he writes) now high, thanks to his plain and open speaking. He gets special treatment at Uzbek functions and finds that he can make representations on eg some commercial issues involving UK firms and make a difference. He has travelled 15,000 miles in his first three months in Tashkent – his official Discovery previously had gone only 10,000 miles in three years.

But all is not well in the Embassy. The working atmosphere could be ‘poisonous’. Craig wonders ("to put it at its most basic") whether the lack of graduates on the UK staff side (compared to the fact that almost all the Uzbek locally employed staff were graduates) is causing problems.

This is a bizarre passage. Is he hinting that somehow the ungraduated Brits were too uncouth to behave properly? And what did he actually do about this matter? His Embassy team was too small for this sort of ‘mutual contempt’ to be tolerated by himself as Ambassador. His subsequent difficulties with FCO HQ on management issues in part stem from lack of grip here?

He describes two staffing problems. One of his British team is accused of assaulting his next-door neighbour, plus irregularities involving two Uzbek locally employed women are uncovered in the Embassy Accounts. One of them is Zhenya who had one role as his part-time secretary:

I hadn’t wamed to Zhenya. She had been recruited directly from the KGB and maintained some of those attitudes. I wasn’t really sure how far I trusted her.

Blimey. He has a person with a KGB background as his local secretary – and he’s not sure how far he trusts her?!

He recruits another secretary, and makes his choice according to unlawful criteria:

The moment the first candidate walked in the door, she had the job … classical beauty, perfect face framed by long blonde hair.

Professional Judgement Rating: 5/10

Craig is making a strong impact in Uzbekistan and in London and the FCO network thanks to his energetic start and outspokenness. He has the chance to establish a good relationship with the Uzbek leadership and use that to advance UK/Western interests. However, it is not obvious that he has any clear ideas on how to build on this strong start with the Uzbeks and with London to get lasting results in a methodical and disciplined manner.

Plus his political/public impact risks being undermined by an erratic if not sexist management style. All that impressive travelling perhaps is taking him away from the Embassy too much – has he in place robust arrangements for the basics to be done properly? If not, trouble down the line?