What is the point of Lord Peter Mandelson?

Do taxpayers get good value from ambassadors?

Have you ever wondered what diplomat’s do all day? The question partially arises from what looks suspiciously like some freelance policy making by Lord Peter Mandelson, His Majesty’s Ambassador to Washington.

Generally speaking diplomats are obliged to adhere to the advice of the 16^th century diplomat Sir Henry Wotton who, on a mission to Augsburg (of all places), said: ‘An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country’.

Implicit in this advice is that the gentleman in question is not expected to make policy on behalf of the government who dispatched him. However the modesty-challenged Lord Mandelson appears to think he knows better and weighed in to publicly tell Ukraine what it should be doing to get into the good books of the Orange Blob in the White House.

He was sort of slapped down the following day in London, arguably with a feather duster rather than the back of a hand but Lord Mandelson is still in place, as is only fair because he has barely had a chance to unpack his collection of expensive suits.

Obviously, he will not be spending the bulk of his time making policy on the hop because, like all ambassadors he has a heavy agenda of schmoozing engagements, a fair amount of time clutching rapidly warming wine glasses and a demanding schedule of attending set piece events some of which are as fascinating as being confronted with a dozen albums containing charming photos of totally unique grandchildren.

There is no suggestion that Sir Peter is unable to perform high levels of schmoozing and he can clearly wield a piece of fine crystal alongside the best of them but there is more to his duties.

I do not pretend to have any access to the new Ambassadors’ schedule but as a foreign correspondent have had my fair share of interactions with diplomats and this is what I know:

A great deal of time will be spent baby sitting visiting VIPs, who need to be wined and dinned and carefully shepherded through the minefields of encounters along the way.

Inside the embassy there will be endless internal meetings. I am told that most ambassadors get the biggest kick out of briefings from in-house spooks who seamlessly mix gossip with information that frankly can be gleaned by careful perusal of the media but there’s always the chance of a nugget of intelligence from informants with varying degrees of access to insider’s knowledge.

This provides the basis for the ‘cables’ the ambassador sends back to base in London. The use of the word ‘cables’ reflects the arcane and often outrageously pretentious nonsense which surrounds diplomacy because the whole edifice of grand buildings, elaborate entertaining and complex protocol, creates a whole world of fantasy, punctuated only by the best and bravest of diplomats who prefer to live in the twenty-first century and see their tasks as being functional.

I was particularly impressed by a diplomat I met in Hong Kong who told me that she would not be wasting her country’s taxpayers’ money by holding a national day reception which largely consisted of receiving the same group of people who attend every other reception of this kind.

Then there was the diplomat who confided that his embassy was probably not better informed than any half decent journalist but they got to wear better threads.

Such departures from the diplomatic norm are few and far between and pose the question of why such great store is set by diplomatic representation. Or, maybe, the relevant question is to wonder why downsizing these impressive demands on the taxpayer’s pocket is not more often considered at a time when cuts to the welfare of the very poorest people are bandied about as being essential.

That said at least the embassies of democratic states are not heavily deployed in undermining their hosts. A case in point being China which is planning to build the biggest embassy on European soil in London in a historic building previously occupied by the Royal Mint, and, rather fittingly, further back in history, the site of the burial grounds for victims of the Black Death.

Fittingly because Chinese diplomats in London are keen to exercise extra-territorial jurisdiction over opponents of the dictatorship, have been involved in physically assaulting demonstrators and, although hard to conclusively prove, are engaged in industrial scale surveillance activities. The British government, determined to ignore security operatives’ advice and in the face of strong local opposition, seem set to give the go-ahead for this mega project.

This suggests that diplomacy is not always benign and farcical but in the hands of one-party states is something far more sinister. What a pity then that fun loving North Korea can’t do better than housing its embassy in a suburban house in Gunnersbury Avenue, way out in less than fashionable London W5.

It looks so very innocent but goodness knows what goes on inside