Does the Foreign Office discriminate against women diplomats, as evidenced by the fact that there has never been a woman Ambassador to Washington or Paris or the UN or EU?

No.

My latest piece at Telegraph Comment explains what is going on:

Some 15-20 new “fast-stream” diplomats (those deemed capable of operating strongly in later decades in the highest jobs) join the FCO every year. There were 18 new entrants in 1979 when I joined, of whom eight or so were women. Of these only two stayed the course for a long-term FCO career. Some left quickly for different (often better paid) jobs, some left later. One ended up at the Old Bailey, convicted of spying for Egypt against Israel. Of the two who had a long-term career, one reached junior ambassador level. The other ended her FCO career in a high-level London job dealing with national security issues.

In short, the starting sample for looking at these issues is really small. One smart woman diplomat’s mid-career resignation here and another’s change of career there 20 years ago make a noticeable difference at the top now. One high-flying woman had an understanding with her professional husband that they would follow her FCO career for a few years, then she would follow his. They each honoured the deal. Result? She seemed to lose the momentum needed to reach the very top of the FCO, but still ended up in a top-ten ambassador role.

The key factor for top appointments is the career profile you need to be credible. Ambassador positions in the UN, Washington, Paris or European Union require amazing breadth of sharp-end operational experience both in London and overseas. Usually this includes being a Private Secretary in your late 30s or early 40s to the Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister. You need to know how the machinery of government works as a whole.

These Private Secretary jobs require staggeringly long hours combined with constant travelling for years on end. Many married women at that stage of their lives do not want to give an unrelenting exhausting commitment that is largely incompatible with normal family life. They themselves choose not to bid for these jobs. This reduces their chances of getting the highest jobs later on.

It’s not only British Ministers who brutalise their close staff. When in the Eighties the FCO was examining its policy on homosexuality, it discovered something interesting in Madrid: “Because homosexuals have no domestic ties, the [Spanish] administration has a conscious policy of putting them in departments where long and unconscionable hours are the norm, eg the Minister’s Private Office. The system works admirably well.”

Conclusion?

FCO men and women alike make informed career choices that have long-term implications. Good. Yet the lament still goes up that FCO women are subject to “discrimination”. I remember the ambassadors’ annual gathering in 2004 being lectured on this topic by the then Labour government, who themselves had abysmally failed to appoint women in any numbers into key government positions.

Back in real life more women are steadily working their way through the FCO system and, in due course, will be in or around the top levels of the diplomatic service and achieving the very highest positions regularly. It just takes time in a small service where so much rightly turns on practical experience and foreign languages acquired over several decades, and where the top jobs require the very best guns available to advance our national interests.

Sue Cameron proposes making political appointments of women to top diplomatic jobs. That idea makes no sense for the United Nations and European Union, where the ambassador needs to arrive knowing staggering amounts about many technical policy dossiers.

Paris or Washington? Forget that too. The locals want to know that the British Ambassador understands diplomacy and can operate hard right across Whitehall. So does London. No Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister will have much faith in the overseas credibility of an ambassador appointed to tick a diversity box.

So that issue is sorted. Next?