Conservative Home have run an unusually fatuous article by one Max Wind-Cowie of Demos, where he works on the Progressive Conservatism Project. He even has the hair to match.

M W-C suggests that UK diplomacy is ailing because we do not apply the American method of appointing friends of senior politicians to top diplomatic postings:

It doesn’t have to be this way.  In the US senior diplomats are selected by the executive to represent the political will of the American people.  This forges a synchronicity between the voice of the President and the voices of his ambassadors – especially as around 30% of all senior US diplomats are recruited from outside the Foreign Service entirely, bringing fresh blood, fresh ideas and new thinking into play. 

This ensures that the POTUS and the Secretary of State can trust that their representatives will genuinely represent them rather than the vested interests of the civil service.

Post-modern progressive mixed metaphor alert: reform diplomacy, forge a synchronicity.

Look, we could go down this route. It has some superficial attractions. But:

  • it’s unaffordable without giving huge bungs to the PM’s friends (senior people will not work in tricky spots for the derisory salaries the FCO pays) – unlikely to be popular in current circs and indeed is not especially ‘progressive’
  • they’ll be largely ineffective in practice as they won’t have the language skills or regional expertise – US Ambassadors have huge Embassies to support them to compensate for this, we don’t
  • they may have problems dealing with servants

The really amazing thing about this inept article is that he somehow contrives to link this dubious proposition to the UK’s negotiating position on the EU Budget, probably the one area of government where only skilled diplomats/technocrats are capable of following the procedures necessary to get the results politicians say they want.

Max at top speed:

So, did we triumph or were we once more outsmarted by the Eurocrats?

The truth is neither. This wasn’t the victory Cameron spun but nor was it the outright defeat many Conservatives are mourning.  It was a diplomatic fudge of the kind that Britain has come to specialise in – a ‘score-draw’ rather than an outright win.

Of course, Cameron ought to be used to this scenario by now … the way in which Britain acts on the world stage can appear slap-dash and reactive and this limits the ability of the Government to achieve its international objectives.   Our diplomatic endeavours are structured to fail; real and urgent reform could improve our standing in the world and place more global influence in the hands of our politicians.

Max. You work for a Think-tank. Up on the shelf there you’ll find the EU Treaties. In them are the procedures for qualified majority voting in the EU. Reda them carefully.

In the recent Budget haggling we did not have a veto, so we did what we could to mobilise a blocking minority. Pretty good job n the circs.

Why, pray, do you think that a politician or senior businessperson posted through your real and urgent reforms would have done any better working out a way forward for UK plc?

Next great idea?