When I was growing up in Diplomacy and in charge of detailed practical arrangements for many high-level visits (especially in Moscow in the early Yeltsin years, when one Cabinet Minister or Parliamentary delegation after another was jetting in), I was always left smirking when the then Ambassador would fret over points of detail which were already nailed down.

Didn’t this stuffy old gizmo trust his own staff?

Yet things change. One moves up and becomes an Ambassador onesself.

And the world looks very different.

Mainly because the horrid realisation dawns that when you are in the car with the VIP en route to a function at which the media and a large crowd are expected, you find yourself praying that when the VIP gets out the car there will be someone there to greet, and then the arrangements will flow smoothly.

Worse – there is now nothing you can do to stop protocol disaster if that is what is heading your way. You are in the wobbly hands of whomever made the final plan for that function, and of everyone else involved – and any one of them might have messed up.

More!

If there is a mess-up and you get back in the car with the peeved VIP who has had some embarrassing photographs taken and is brooding on the next day’s Oh No – Not Another Gaffe media headlines, that VIP is likely to be unrestrained in blaming you as the nearest available person.

You are the local boss, who enjoys the honour of travelling with the VIP in the car precisely because you are trusted to make sure that it all works 200%. Yet, behold what happened. Loser!

All of which goes to explain why VIPs on unfamiliar territory are carefully escorted from point A to point B to point C, to avoid stupid mess-ups.

So watch what happens to PM Gordon Brown and Al Gore when they venture off on their own, striding purposefully down the corridor together for a fine photo-op to show just how purposefully they are working together to Save the Planet, with no protocol person hovering to steer them in just the right direction.

Ooops.

Watch also the uneasy look on the faces of sundry security and private secretary people accelerating in their wake as they realise that the two Leaders have gone astray.

Not to omit the look of steely cold rage on the face of Al Gore when he emerges back into view as he realises what has happened when unwisely was led by this uppity Brit.

A delicious example of the First Law of Diplomacy – don’t be too clever.