Hits back over UK ambassador's leaked memos

Andrew Sparrow
Sun 7 Jul 2019 12.26 EDT
Last modified on Sun 7 Jul 2019 17.19 EDT

... Darroch said in the memos that media reports about vicious administration rows (“knife fights”, as he put it) were mostly true. He cast doubt on whether the Trump regime would ever become more stable, described the president as insecure, and suggested Trump’s career might end in disgrace.

Asked about the controversy in New Jersey by reporters on Sunday night, Trump said: “The ambassador has not served the UK well, I can tell you that. We are not big fans of that man … I can say things about him, but I won’t bother” ...

David Gauke, the justice secretary, told the BBC it was important for ambassadors to be able to give “honest, unvarnished advice” to ministers, and he said the leak of the cache of memos was “disgraceful”.

Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, told BBC Radio 4’s World This Weekend it was “a very serious breach” of diplomatic rules and that an inquiry must follow. “Diplomats must be able to communicate securely with their governments in order to be able to convey the messages that everybody needs to know,” he said. “Governments cannot make reasonable decisions unless they have all the facts available to them, and that means an honest assessment of the political situation in the host country ...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/07/foreign-office-orders-inquiry-into-leak-of-cables-on-trump