In the Steerpike column of The Spectator:
Oh dear. Just when you thought a British ambassador to the US couldn’t possibly cause any more grief for Sir Keir Starmer, enter Christian Turner. Peter Mandelson set a high bar for humiliating Labour ministers, but the career diplomat – who took up post in February – has given the Dark Lord a run for his money. Somewhere in King Charles Street, Karen Pierce is having the last laugh…
The latest kerfuffle centres on a leaked recording of Turner dispensing pearls of wisdom to a group of British students on a jolly to DC, in the same month that he took up residence. The audio, obtained by the Financial Times, contains a selection of eyebrow-raising comments, not least the ambassador’s verdict that the much-vaunted ‘Special Relationship’ is rather ‘backwards-looking’ and weighed down by ‘baggage’. Coming at a time when Starmer is trying keep Donald Trump onside, that is very much NOT the party line.
The real ‘Special Relationship’, Turner confided to the school kids, is between the United States and Israel. Not content with geopolitics, the ambassador enlivened his audience with thoughts on domestic drama. Sir Keir, he suggested, is ‘pretty clearly on the ropes’, a ringside assessment that rather stretches the Civil Service Code’s enthusiasm for political neutrality. The Mandelson saga, Turner declared, has ‘nearly brought down the government’, leaving the Prime Minister’s future ‘quite touch and go’. Some, er, ‘brave’ thoughts, in Sir Humphrey parlance…
As for Mandelson himself, Turner reportedly waved away the scandal as ‘a bit of a red herring’, hinting that the real problem involved ‘a bunch of associations that were embarrassing to him and the government that had not been revealed’. The poor souls in the Foreign Office press office were left performing their now-familiar fire drill – all during the King’s high stakes visit to Washington DC. The official line is that the remarks were merely ‘private, informal comments’ to visiting students and ‘certainly not any reflection of the UK government’s position’. Come back Kim Darroch all is forgiven…
It is one thing for excitable backbenchers to gossip about the PM’s prospects. But for Britain’s top diplomat in Washington to offer such commentary to a gaggle of student is, even by Whitehall standards, a curious choice. What is it with Our Man in D.C.?