Imagine you are the Foreign Office in London. A bit of a wildcat in your youth. Yet still squeaky keen to show Relevance and Cleverness.

Egad! An idea dawns.

Let London lead the praise for the sybaritic delights of latter-day Western personal freedom! British Embassies should all fly the LGBT Rainbow Flag, symbol of the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Transsexual community. Round the world! Tomorrow!

You instruct a senior official to draft the telegram of instructions to Posts. After some time he reappears, a nervous expression on his sallow features.

“Umm … I fear that we have a problem, Sir,” he says.

“Did I not expect that doing anything new and fun would create one?” you sigh, not without sarcasm.

“To be sure, Sir. The situation is as follows. The relevant Departments advise that we should not fly this particular flag on an Embassy or High Commission in any country where gay rights are, er, lacking, diminished or controversial. If we did, the locals could well think we were mocking and/or patronising them in a public, insolent way. Unwise. And, dare I suggest, counter-productive. This naturally rules out all of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and much of Latin America.”

“I suppose so. Therefore?”

“Well, Russia and CIS countries are out for similar reasons, as are all Muslim countries. In our multilateral missions such as the UN/EU/NATO this ingenious gesture could provoke controversy – and possibly also adverse publicity – on a scale and intensity which might be … unhelpful.”

“Washington?”

“The best available advice suggests that this would not be well received, Sir. Not in an election year.”

“But crikey, every year is an election year in the USA!”

“Indeed, Sir.”

“What about the Balkans?”

“Again, too prone to excitable over-reaction, Sir. All that grilled meat, no doubt. Although some Montenegrin men are tall, dark and, well, very … dishy!”

“Calm down, Carruthers. So what are we left with?”

“The best place for such a gesture is an unthreatening part of the world. A bland, Bambiland area where religious pieties plus national identities and symbols and thus the role of national embassies are all essential targets of postmodern pastiche. Where Uncontestable Principles favouring gayness and queeritude in all their most luxuriant manifestations are now paramount, if not yet unambiguously obligatory.”

“You are, I think, talking about the European Union?”

“Precisely so, Sir. It is most gratifying if not humbling that you follow my chain of reasoning with such precision.”

“Alright then, enough already. Order all our EU Embassies to fly that, er, MGB GT Flag immediately.”

“A certain circumspection may be in order, Sir. If we establish the practice with some care in EU Europe, we can move on with confidence and ambition and due deliberation elsewhere. North Korea and Belarus suggest themselves for the next decade. Antarctica too, perhaps, subject to close consultation with the other Antarctic Treaty Parties..?”

“Zimbabwe?”

“We in fact flew the LGBT flag there this morning, Sir. This was done with a view to broadening their horizons away from their current political difficulties, by opening a new national dialogue about tolerance and fair play. This plan alas backfired. The rival political factions united against us, in an unexpected but robust show of unity. Our High Commission was burned down this morning. In the ensuing skirmishes with the mob the flag – alas still attached to the flag-pole itself – was used to impale the High Commissioner in a most unhappy and even theatrical fashion.”

“I say! Foreigners. What a tricky, ungrateful lot they are.”

“My very thought, Sir.”

“Issue the telegram to EU Posts then. Not exactly the grand global gesture I had in mind, but we must start somewhere, eh?”

“I anticipated this happy outcome and issued the telegram just before our meeting, Sir.”

“By God, Carruthers, are you a qualified mind-reader too?”

“Where I detect a mind, Sir, I endeavour to read it and thereby give satisfaction.”

You send the honest fellow on his way and look out over St James’s Park.

Why is Foreign Policy so damn’ complicated?

All you want is Just To Be Liked …