DIPLOMAT magazine has had a snazzy website upgrade.

One result appears to be that for the time being you can’t find work by contributor (eg me) now. You have to scroll through each issue to see what has been posted on the site. Action is in hand to change that, I gather.

Here are my two latest articles.

One on Air Services – my life and times in the famous Maritime, Aviation and Environment Department of the FCO back in 1984/85, when I was grappling with the US/UK politics of the privatisation of British Airways and the punitive damages antitrust lawsuit against BA and other airlines by Freddie Laker. 

Civil aviation is an interesting and little-known international policy area. When you fly you might think that you are held aloft by powerful engines and brilliant engineering. In fact you stay up there thanks to a vast network of treaties and rules, painstakingly negotiated by experts with an eye to national advantage. Yes, I was once one of those experts:

The focus of my job was UK/US air services arrangements. These were complex and bad-tempered: operational issues were asymmetrical, and transatlantic passenger loads were heavy and lucrative.

The US had a huge territory many international ‘gateway’ airports into the territory, and many national airlines. The UK had a small territory, far fewer gateways and far fewer airlines. Above all, it had the state-owned British Airways (BA), much the largest national carrier and a prime target for Mrs Thatcher’s privatisation policy. The Americans pressed us to allow more US carriers to fly into our gateways, but would not let BA make internal flights in the US (eg take passengers from London to New York and then on to Chicago).

These negotiations gave me a depressing insight into the way governments work. I joined a meeting at the Department of Transport (the lead Whitehall Department on civil aviation negotiations) to consider a US demand that we open Manchester airport to more US carriers and/or more flights from the current carriers.

BA objected that the competition would gnaw away at their margins and be ‘unfair’: US carriers could take passengers from Manchester to (say) Chicago but then on to many other US cities, whereas BA could take passengers only from Manchester to Chicago. It was quickly agreed to reject the US request.

The point here is that in deciding the UK position, the government back then focused only on the specific, visible and articulate interest of BA – the more general and invisible interests of people and businesses in the greater Manchester area who would have benefited from a surge in US business and tourist travel were not even mentioned.

Now thanks to social media and the wider information revolution all that has changed – perhaps to the point of creating administrative paralysis as hard-pressed civil servants try to formulate and manage myriad clamorous interests simultaneously…

The other is on the diplomacy of 1947, the year DIPLOMAT was born. The world was still grappling with issues and some conflicts arising from WW2 – a lot was happening all round the planet, including the deaths of hundreds of German forced labourers being used to clear mines. Health and Safety left a lot to be desired back then.

Check out especially the passages on social attitudes in the then FCO (not least women diplomats and smoking after dinner). It really was a different age. Or not:

What of the United Kingdom in 1947? Times were hard, but London was gearing up for the 1948 Olympic Games. A cartoon by New Zealand’s legendary David Low (‘Cut Fags until we have Exports’) recorded a Trafalgar Square lion and Colonel Blimp smoking short cigarettes after tobacco duty rose by 50 per cent as there were not enough dollars to pay for tobacco imports.

A Royal Commission on the Press was set up amidst public concern that concentration of ownership was inhibiting free expression, leading to inaccuracies and allowing advertisers to influence editorial content. It eventually proclaimed that the presentation of news often left much to be desired and that there was inherent partisanship and political bias.

1947? Or 2012?

Plus there is one ghastly spelling error (lifted from the original text I sent in, alas). Can you spot it?