It would be quite funny if it were not so sad

Either Lady Warsi's minions in the civil service have learnt nothing and forgotten none of their ridiculous and frequently disproved statements from the past or they have decided that parliamentary questions are of so little importance that recycling old and meaningless answers is a perfectly adequate way of behaving. Lady Warsi herself, of course, has not the capacity to understand either the questions or the answers so she must be absolved of all sin except the one of not knowing exactly what her limitations are. Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked a perfectly reasonable question that required some kind of a reasonable answer:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Prime Minister’s comments in Brussels on 27 May that Brussels was “too big and too busy” indicate that they intend to oppose any further expansion of the European Union.

After all, we know from experience that widening is not the opposite of deepening and the bigger the EU becomes the more powers are centralized as, quite clearly, a large and ramshackle collection of member states that could never work as one union need to be forced to do so. Does Baroness Warsi understand this? I very much doubt it. Do her minions in the civil service? Well, that is the big question as I asked at the beginning of this posting. In any case, their reply would be quite funny if it were not so sad:

The Prime Minister, my Rt. Hon Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron)’s comment was that Brussels is “too big and too bossy”. He was referring to the need for the EU to reform to become less interfering and more competitive, flexible and democratically accountable. He was not pronouncing on the EU’s territorial size.

The UK continues to be a strong supporter of enlargement based on firm but fair conditionality, focusing on key concerns shared by many Member States, particularly around the rule of law. Enlargement has proved a huge driver of peace, prosperity and progress across our continent.

If they really believe the idiocy of that last sentence or the idea that making the EU ever larger is somehow compatible with it surrendering powers (not that there is the slightest indication of that possibility except in the Prime Minister's pronouncements) than the calibre of our civil service has clearly sunk to an all-time low. If, on the other hand, they do not believe it or do not care whether they believe it but think that any old rubbish will do in reply to a member of Parliament, albeit, the Upper House, then we need to think very seriously about the relationship between the civil service and Parliament, which will be of enormous importance when we start negotiating our way out.

Oh dear, oh dear, life is hard

One would not mind hearing civil service mandarins moaning about how dreadful everything in their world had become if one did not know that largely it was their fault; that we are all paying for this; and, in any case, they are ignoring the elephant in the room.

Sir Christopher Meyer, formerly Our Man in Washington and subsequently Chairman of the somewhat pointless Press Complaints Commission, is doing a bit of complaining himself in the Daily Telegraph.

It seems that the “lights are going out in the Foreign Office” and the great British diplomatic service, traditionally held in the highest esteem by all foreigners is no longer so. In fact, the reputation is under threat.

He then goes on to produce a great deal of misplaced nostalgia (British diplomats have never been known for their extensive knowledge of languages, for instance) and complaints about all the things that are going wrong.

There are several things he does not mention. Apparently, it has escaped Sir Christopher’s attention that the Rolls Royce that is our foreign and diplomatic service has been unable or unwilling to negotiate with any kind of credibility within the European Union and its predecessors. Not to put too fine a point on it, those Europeans who are so full of admiration for British diplomats have run rings round them.

There is, as a number of comments have pointed out, no real need for the FCO any more as the EU Foreign Service, in existence for about twenty years, will, post-Lisbon, become the main diplomatic service for all the member states. Britain, thanks in great measure to our brilliant diplomats, is not a sovereign country and, therefore, has no need for diplomats, ambassadors, attaches or any of that paraphernalia.

The only thing we do need to deal with is expats in trouble, the very task Sir Christopher finds demeaning.

As to the politicization of the diplomatic corps, Sir Christopher Meyer was one of those who pushed the process along, as I wrote as long ago as 2005 on EUReferendum.

If we must have ambassadors, a questionable proposition in this day of easy communication, they should not, in my opinion, be self-publicizing glamour boys or girls. The Meyers seemed the epitome of Blairite politics and diplomacy. So, I was not unduly surprised when Sir Christopher proceeded to stab the Prime Minister and the entire government severally and together in the back by publishing a somewhat self-serving (his brilliance as described by himself in his book appears to be undeniable) memoir of his days in the American capital.

Well, now, before we start to laugh too heartily at another problem Tony Blair seems to have encountered, let us have a look at the truth of the matter.

Sir Christopher Meyer is a civil servant, a diplomat. One assumes he signed something called the Official Secrets’ Act at some point in his career but that does not seem to inhibit anyone any more. As ambassador he was in a position of trust and confidentiality. Above all, he is not supposed to engage in open party politicking. Two years after his ambassadorship he is not exactly expected to diss his employer, the British government.

It’s a bit much to have this self-publicist weeping crocodile tears about the … sob … disintegration of the great British diplomatic service.