After returning from Zagreb I hit the Eurostar to Brussels to join for the first time as a trainer a good CPDS training course aimed at improving the quality of political reporting and analysis produced by EU officials.

In one exercise the participants had to draft an urgent short report about the implications of an imaginary take-over of the Kirkuk oilfields by Kurdish militia – was this a dramatic lunge for Kurdish independence? I as trainer and former senior diplomat also did the exercise with the course members, to help show them how one ‘pro’ might do this job.

My version included a bold line at the end to point out that Kurdish aspirations for an independent state had been around for a long time, and that in tackling Kosovo the EU should bear in mind that others round the world would be watching closely the possible precedent set.

One of the EU officials present whispered to me that that sort of observation would go down badly in a real EU report: "the people dealing with Kosovo would be very angry to see it!" 

No doubt true. But therefore what?

Political and diplomatic precedents set in one part of the world are seized upon elsewhere, for better or worse. This of course does pose difficulties for diplomats grappling with one problem, who really do not want to hear that their actions may cause new problems elsewhere. But does the fact that a point may be ‘unhelpful’ or ‘unwelcome’ mean that it should not be made?

There is a fair question of professional ethics about who should make what points when. Thus as HM Ambassador in Warsaw I often used my telegrams to London to make big picture points about post-Cold War European trends and problems (not least the signals being sent by Moscow under current management) which went well beyond my immediate formal responsibilities. This did not endear me to colleagues elsewhere in the region. But FCO Ministers did not complain – no-one else was offering them such work. 

Some points are sufficiently wide – but nonetheless important – that they do not fit into existing bureaucratic categories. Hence it is not clear who ‘owns’ them and the responsibility for thinking about them. Who then makes them? If no-one does, the advice reaching the top level is sub-optimal. A degree of self-delusion may develop. And we may find ourselves ostensibly solving one problem but only at the cost of opening new ones.

When I was a very junior diplomat in Belgrade the then Ambassador asked me for my opinion on a long and obscure piece of work he had written droning on grimly  about Yugoslav self-management. I paused, searching for a phrase which captured politely my thoughts on this turgid if not hopeless text. He said "you think it’s pedestrian, don’t you!" I said, "Yes!". He generously replied that the one thing I should never do is stop saying honestly and directly what I thought: "all the others here are just yes-men".

"Nothing is linked. But everything is linked."  Deal with it. And don’t complain when someone points out linkages.