How can Kim Darroch represent Britain in Trump’s Washington now? | Simon Jenkins
The UK ambassador was a fool to put his unvarnished opinions in writing and think they would be kept secret
Uniquely dysfunctional, incompetent, unpredictable, faction-riven, diplomatically clumsy, inept. That is Donald Trump’s Washington according to Britain’s ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch. Or is it perhaps Theresa May’s London according to the US’s ambassador to London, Woody Johnson? The difference is that we know the first, but not the second.
Leak inquiries, like that now ordered into the Darroch memorandum, are Whitehall’s most fatuous blood sport. They seldom find culprits and serve merely to magnify the original embarrassment. Usually the damage has been done. Diplomacy is about appearances and not much else. It is hard to see how Darroch can continue to lobby effectively on Britain’s behalf in Trump’s Washington – not least for highly implausible trade concessions post-Brexit.