On the orders of the president
It’s as if all of life has become a war between The Narcissists and everyone else. The Narcissists have definitely won this round, but it might not serve their purposes in the larger war.
(Is that a built-in shield against Narcissists? The more they win the more they disgust everyone else, so their power is always fragile and temporary? It’s a pretty thought, at least.)
The resignation of Sir Kim Darroch followed the failure of the likely next prime minister, Boris Johnson, to say he would support him staying in post – despite being given repeated chances to do so during his TV debate with Jeremy Hunt. As the current Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan put it, by six times refusing to back the ambassador, Johnson had thrown him under a bus.
And thrown Trump a whole truckload of ice cream.
There will now be white hot anger across the Foreign Office and in parliament – not just at the leaker and Trump, but also at Johnson. Whatever sanctimonious expressions of regret he mouths, and however much he blames the leaker, King Charles Street knows the Conservative leadership candidate effectively sacked Darroch on the orders of the president.
And on the orders of the president not for any weighty reasons of state but because the president’s throbbing engorged vanity is wounded. How pathetic is that? What kind of pitiful needy childish loser – to use Trump’s favorite epithet – admits to taking it personally when an ambassador reports to his government? What kind of pitiful needy childish loser takes it personally in public and calls the truth-telling ambassador silly schoolyard names? What kind of chickenshit lickspittle toady backs him up when he does so? Donnie and BoJo, that’s what kind.
I yield to no one in my loathing of Boris Johnson, but he was in a difficult position here. How effective could Sir Kim Darroch be as ambassador if Trump made it clear that no-one was to talk to him? US-UK official relations would be gridlocked while he remained in post.
Well, I don’t know, but it looks as if the non-Boris Tories wanted to resist Trump’s bullying, and maybe they could have. Darroch did NOTHING wrong and Trump acted like a tantruming child. There are lots of reasons for not rewarding him.
I wonder if that wasn’t the problem, though: staying would have meant that Darroch was a political football in the leadership race, and that Johnson would feel obliged to really cut him loose if he wins.
By bowing out on his own, I’m hoping that Darroch will spend a quiet few months in Foreign Office HQ (or whatever British ambassadors do between gigs), and then get appointed to a new important ambassadorial post regardless of who wins the leadership race.
IF Johnson wins, on a woeful act of judgement by the British electorate, what he offers Darroch will speak volumes about his priorities.
I’m tipping Darroch will get offered Ambassador to Iceland. Straight into the freezer.
Liam Fox, the British Sectary for International Trade, is due to meet Ivanka for doubtlessly extremely high-powered and important talks, originally to be conducted with Darroch present, and has declared on the BBC that will offer an apology to Ivanka for the nasty things said about her dear dad.
Omar, it is unlikely that Darroch will get another posting as he is due to retire at the end of the year. And please don’t blame the British electorate for whoever gets the PM job; it isn’t an election, just a vote from Conservative Party members to determine the next party leader.