The slow death of the British Civil Service

[Aimless]

A leak of memos detailing the low opinion Kim Darroch—the UK's ambassador to the US—has of Trump led the toddler in chief to attack the ambassador in a truly presidential manner. Darroch's—and England's—greatest humiliation, however, came at the hands of his own presumptive PM, who publicly threw him under the bus, setting an extremely harmful precedent that will no doubt send chills through the British civil service. Diplomats must be able to provide their governments with clear and honest assessments, and they can only do so if they can count on their govts to stand by them; Johnson's decision to throw loyalty to the wind, and debase both himself and his country before Trump, will undoubtedly have negative repercussions for the work done by the UK's civil servants. Deeply embarrassing, if you expect a PM to adhere to even the lowest standards of courage and integrity. Unsurprising once you recall how far England has fallen under the governance of the increasingly degenerate Conservative Party.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton...ch-resignation

[Hazir]

Well. He would have been toast either way. Given that the UK and USA are friends extremely strong apologies for badmouthing Trump are unavoidable.
And there are no taking backsies on honest opinions. The right thing to do for May would have been to fire the ambassador.

[LittleFuzzy]

What Hazir said. Yes, you want that honesty and candor in the extremely private communications between an ambassador and its government but if that private communication does go public, keeping the ambassador in place with such comments known is basically spitting the host country in the face. It's not good relations. You have to recall the amabassador and replace them with someone else at a minimum. And this is even more true with petty and infantile leaders like Trump.

[RandBlade]

What Hazir and Fuzzy said.

I agree with every word Darroch wrote, but that doesn't matter one jot once it became public and Trump made him persona non grata. Darroch literally was just doing his job, but also literally could no longer do his job.

[Steely Glint]

The point isn't that the guy ended up having to resign, but that Johnson failed to support him. Corbyn and May were falling over themselves to praise and support Darroch in parliament, and there's a good reason for that.

[Hazir]

The point isn't that the guy ended up having to resign, but that Johnson failed to support him. Corbyn and May were falling over themselves to praise and support Darroch in parliament, and there's a good reason for that.

Supporting the fall guy defies having a fall guy to begin with. Don't blame Johnson for not doing what you couldn't expect from him. The only people to blame are the ones who leaked the memo's. If possible they should be prosecuted for leaking.

And FYI it made me feel a bit dirty that you forced me to defend Johnson.

[Steely Glint]

Supporting the fall guy defies having a fall guy to begin with. Don't blame Johnson for not doing what you couldn't expect from him. The only people to blame are the ones who leaked the memo's. If possible they should be prosecuted for leaking.

And FYI it made me feel a bit dirty that you forced me to defend Johnson.

So, how many US diplomats had to resign after saying unflattering things about host countries or organisations which were revealed in the US Wiki-leaks cables?

[RandBlade]

So, how many US diplomats had to resign after saying unflattering things about host countries or organisations which were revealed in the US Wiki-leaks cables?

How about this from a former British diplomat fired by the FCO and attacked by Darroch after revealing his host country was involved in CIA Torture?

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archi...e-explanation/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archi...arroch-affair/

And if you try and shoot the messenger with this one suggesting that Craig Murray is a right-wing columnist I will suggest that's about as plausible as suggesting that Hazir is a Eurosceptic.

[Steely Glint]

How about this from a former British diplomat fired by the FCO and attacked by Darroch after revealing his host country was involved in CIA Torture?

The guy was making an absolute nuisance of himself, hardly surprising they booted him. Don't get me wrong, he absolutely did the right thing given the bullshit the US and UK govs were up to back then, but the circumstances are totally different.

[Hazir]

So, how many US diplomats had to resign after saying unflattering things about host countries or organisations which were revealed in the US Wiki-leaks cables?

Is it something in the water that makes you Brits forget that international relations are first and foremost about power?

If I were you I would focus on the fact that you have people in your government committing high treason.

[Steely Glint]

Is it something in the water that makes you Brits forget that international relations are first and foremost about power?

That's just one very good reason why it'a a bad idea to demonstrate that you are easily pushed around, and that a sufficiently obnoxious temper tantrum can get a British diplomat replaced. Doubly so when you're dealing with someone with the mentality of Donald Trump.

If I were you I would focus on the fact that you have people in your government committing high treason.

I can't deal with all the treason in the British government right now - work is very busy.

[Aimless]

Darroch resigning isn't surprising. What's surprising—or perhaps not—is the way Johnson threw him under the bus. He could—and should—have refused to go along with the leaker's agenda, dodging questions about Darroch's future job prospects, instead keeping the spotlight on the extremely worrying precedent set by this targeted attack and on Darroch's long history of faithful service to the UK. You'll note, btw, that the US's ambassadors don't easily get fired over offensive conduct, and neither do Russia's. The UK's civil servants saw Johnson demonstrating extremely poor leadership, as many current and esp. former civil servants have stated.

[RandBlade]

The point isn't that the guy ended up having to resign, but that Johnson failed to support him. Corbyn and May were falling over themselves to praise and support Darroch in parliament, and there's a good reason for that.

They can both virtue signal without having to have a working relations with POTUS for the next couple of years?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...r-kim-darroch/

[Steely Glint]

They can both virtue signal without having to have a working relations with POTUS for the next couple of years?

He will also have to have a working relationship with the civil service over the next two years, and he's just vice signaled that he'll will in no sense have their back and will, in fact, push them in front of a bus the second it suits him. Guess we know where his loyalties lie now.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...r-kim-darroch/

Every right wing columnist after someone like Trump or Johnson does something stupid and or reprehensible:

Twitter Link

[RandBlade]

He will also have to have a working relationship with the civil service over the next two years, and he's just vice signaled that he'll will in no sense have their back and will, in fact, push them in front of a bus the second it suits him. Guess we know where his loyalties lie now.

Good. The civil service is there to serve the country not the other way around.

Every right wing columnist after someone like Trump or Johnson does something stupid and or reprehensible:

Twitter Link

The former Labour MP for Glasgow South for 14 years and 2011 candidate to be leader of the Scottish Labour Party is a right-wing columnist?

[Steely Glint]

Good. The civil service is there to serve the country not the other way around.

I realize this goes against everything you believe in as a Brexiter and Tory, but they actually do that best when they're able to tell the truth.

The former Labour MP for Glasgow South for 14 years and 2011 candidate to be leader of the Scottish Labour Party is a right-wing columnist?

Blairite, Leaver, thinks the current Labour party is run by hard-left loonies, makes ends meet by writing puff pieces to cover for Bo-Jos fuck ups in the Daily Telegraph - sure, why not?

[RandBlade]

I realize this goes against everything you believe in as a Brexiter and Tory, but they actually do that best when they're able to tell the truth.



Blairite, Leaver, thinks the current Labour party is run by hard-left loonies, makes ends meet by writing puff pieces to cover for Bo-Jos fuck ups in the Daily Telegraph - sure, why not?

Wait a second, forget "Blairite" now apparently being "right-wing" . . . you don't think the Labour Party is run by hard-left loonies?

I thought you were a Lib Dem? I thought you would recognise Seumas Milne, Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell as hard-left loonies?

[RandBlade]

Libertarians are pretty hard right. Not far right.

[Veldan Rath]

Libertarians are pretty hard right. Not far right.

What now?

[RandBlade]

What now?

Far right is a term that has been adopted to mean Nazis, racists, fascists etc and not people who are simply right wing. Couldn't be more different to Libertarians.

Libertarians are however pretty hard right, not soft centre right. They're firm in what they believe and taking a stand in their beliefs.

[Enoch the Red]

Far right is a term that has been adopted to mean Nazis, racists, fascists etc and not people who are simply right wing. Couldn't be more different to Libertarians.

Libertarians are however pretty hard right, not soft centre right. They're firm in what they believe and taking a stand in their beliefs.

As has been discussed here to death, the right and left paradigm isn't particularly useful for describing libertarian principles. Classifying them as hard right doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me.

[Veldan Rath]

As has been discussed here to death, the right and left paradigm isn't particularly useful for describing libertarian principles. Classifying them as hard right doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me.

What he said.

[RandBlade]

As has been discussed here to death, the right and left paradigm isn't particularly useful for describing libertarian principles. Classifying them as hard right doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me.

I like the political compass version of left and right for economics, libertarianism v authoritarianism for social issues. And yes, libertarianism is a very hard liberal form of right.

[Steely Glint]

Libertarians are pretty hard right. Not far right.

So hard right is the same thing as far right. If you google it, 'far right' comes up. In fact, 'hard right' isn't really a thing.

The reason I would not call libertarians hard right is not because that's the wrong place to put them on some abstract political spectrum, but because the term 'far right' has certain connotations that, whatever their flaws, simply do not apply to libertarians, so using the word conveys the wrong impression. Do libertarians sit around thinking about how they can best exterminate race enemies? No. So I'm not going to call them far right, because that's what someone will think I mean if I use that phrase to describe them.

Terms like "far right", "hard left" etc have value in that they are useful short hand in that they tell you something about what someone's politics are, but trying to put them into some abstract symmetrical framework is a mugs game, people's political views are far too complex to be put into a framework like that, or at least two complex to go into one with just two axis.

[Aimless]

Libertarianism is just the goth approach to various other mainstream ideologies.

[Veldan Rath]

Libertarianism is just the goth approach to various other mainstream ideologies.

Sigh...