Walking it like you talk it...
"The Foreign Office has been accused of trying to gag diplomats for life after regulations were issued stopping them from commenting on international issues even after retirement....But a letter from the Foreign Office director of human resources, circulated to ambassadors and senior staff, effectively makes this a lifetime obligation. In a passage underlined for emphasis, the letter states that "your obligations of confidentiality continue after you have left the service". Source
Right, here is a list of foreign secretaries, going backwards, who have published their memoirs:
- Miliband - Not yet
- Beckett - Not yet
- Cook - The Point of Departure
- Rifkind - Not as such
- Hurd - Memoirs
- Major - Autobiography
- Howe - Conflict of Loyalty
- Pym - Politics of Consent
- Lord Carrington -Reflect on Things Past
- Owen - Personally Speaking
- Callaghan - Time and Chance
- Douglas-Home - The Way The Wind Blows
I cannot claim to have read any of them, but I would be amazed if none of them brought anything new to light. As a footnote, Lord Carrington merits more than the mere use of his surname as an indicator, as both by public reputation and anecdote he is 'a verray perfight gentil knight'.
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on Wednesday, October 10, 2007 at 8:38 am.
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Is this gagging order in any way connected to the recent kerfuffle over ex-Ambassador Craig Murray?
(PS: Am I the only person in the world who cannot get the Telegraph pages to load?)
Could be, could be...
The 'graph's site is working just fine for me.
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