My own near-death experience with Leaks came back in the mid-1980s when I was in the FCO Planning Staff as the official speech-writer for Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe. Part of the job involved checking draft speeches prepared by other FCO Departments, usually with a view to effecting radical improvements […]
Once upon a time the FCO did not have its ‘24/7 Response Centre’. It had a Resident Clerk. Not a single person, but a group of London-based diplomats at First Secretary level who took it in turns to work once a week at night, perched in a room awash in faded glory high […]
Diplomats and the media like to talk a lot about Stability. Stability is good, instability is not. They maybe have a point. Not much good usually comes out of heavy political instability. Unless it is the overthrow of a bad regime or dictator, in which case it is not instability […]
