Too Close Diplomatic Relations?

Here’s something new.

A husband-and-wife couple doing a job-share at Ambassador level, for the first time ever, anwhere.

Tom Carter and Carolyn Davidson are off to represent HM The Queen as High Commissioner in Zambia, taking it in turns to run the High Commission for four months at a time.

Here are their careers so far.

Ignoring if we can in the Guardian piece the witty and unexpected reference to Ferrero Rocher chocolates (and the vacuous innacuracy over another senior diplomatic husband and wife team mentioned who are no longer Ambassadors at Post in Bratislava and Vienna respectively), we ask ourselves: is this a Good Idea?

The Guardian article does not tell us. It tweebles on about the grimness of the diplomatic spouse’s role, the handiness of the arrangement for the married couple themselves and the ‘positive feedback’ they had as job-sharing Deputy Head of Mission in Slovakia.

Nothing serious about the main issue: how to advance hard-headed British interests in that tricky part of the world?

The point of course is that it is, mainly, not a Good Idea. Or at least that it is an idea whose goodness applies only in marginal cases which (HMG hope) do not matter overmuch.

The point of an Ambassador or High Commissioner is to represent British interests in the country concerned. Judgement calls are constantly being required. More often than not, they do not make much of a difference. But sometimes they matter hugely. Even in Africa.

Remember Sandline?

Say that there had been a husband-and-wife jobshare in Sierra Leone during that crucial period. Or in Uzbekistan trying to work out how best to balance all the moral and policy factors Craig Murray was tackling. Or for that matter in Warsaw when the UK EU Presidency was trying to negotiate a complex EU Budget deal.

Is it really likely or even desirable that two professional people in tough situations like that are going to agree fully on the analysis and on the recommendations on tactics and strategy, and will have equally good relations with key local interlocutors and in Whitehall?

One of them will be more credible and effective. When his/her four-month stint ends, is Whitehall going to be pleased to see him/her standing down to do an Open University course rather than grip the crisis?

Obviously not. It is weird even to pose the question.

Thus a job-share at this Ambassadorial level looks to rely on one core and unspoken assumption.

That in the greater scheme of things the job they are sharing is relatively unimportant to permit an experiment of this nature; that the UK’s relations with the country concerned – here Zambia – can take some knocks from the obvious inefficiency/inconsistency the arrangement involves.

Would we try this with China, or Russia, or Pakistan, or India, or France, or the USA?

No.

And if we did, the countries would ask us to come back in three years or so after the job-share posters left, when we had decided to behave seriously again.

That said, if (as must be the case) the Zambians approved the shared posting, they carry a share of the cost of any mishaps and missed opportunities which occur.

And, last but not least, good luck to Tom and Carolyn themselves. I am sure they’ll give the job their best shot.

Does not all this remind us of the famous Gay Flag problem? How – and where – can the modern Foreign Office safely ‘tick the boxes’ of political correctness and ‘diversity’ while expecting to be taken seriously?

Memo to next Government: