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A very diplomatic blog: British ambassadors worldwide tell (nearly) all on the web

This article is more than 14 years old
From Ukraine to the Caymans and China to Zimbabwe, UK envoys are joining the band of bloggers

For our man in Ukraine, it was an uncomfortable moment. Arriving back at the embassy in Kiev, Britain's ambassador, Leigh Turner, discovered a troupe of angry Ukrainian folk dancers. The dancers were protesting about the fact that they had been refused British visas.

Returning to his residence that evening, Turner flipped open his Apple MacBook. He began writing. "Back in Kyiv, I'm surprised to find a troupe of Ukrainian folk dancers performing outside the embassy," he tapped. Explaining the UK's visa decision-making process was "difficult stuff", he wrote.

Welcome to the brave new world of blogger ambassadors. Two years after the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) tentatively launched a web platform for digitally minded staff, 30 diplomats now write blogs. Last week Turner became the latest UK ambassador to join the burgeoning blogroll; he rubs virtual shoulders with our chaps in Egypt and China and our woman in Guatemala.

The FCO says it takes a hands-off approach to what its ambassadors write about. Some stick to government policy. Others write colourfully about the pitfalls of overseas life. In a recent blog posting Britain's governor of the Cayman Islands, Stuart Jack, revealed a gang of marauding green iguanas had invaded his roof. He even attached a picture. (Jack also pointed out that crocodiles once indigenous to the Cayman Islands but now found only in Cuba and Florida had been spotted paddling off the coast. He admitted that the sighting might have been a large fish.)

Gone are the days when ambassadors would write telegrams, sent from the sweltering tropics to be read days later by fellow specialists sitting in grey-skied Whitehall. They are now reaching out to a global non-elite audience. The blogs may also make life easier for future historians, who will no longer have to trawl through dusty archives to find an ex-diplomat's take on public events.

"For the last 20 or 30 years there's been public diplomacy. The aim is to influence the opinion in the country you are in. You can do it through making speeches, giving newspaper interviews and doing British Council stuff," Turner says. "Writing a blog is just a natural extension of that. It's also fun."

Turner began blogging in April; his columns initially appeared on the Kiev embassy website. During a four-year break from the Foreign Office from 2002-2006 Turner wrote for the Financial Times from Berlin and also turned his hand to novel writing. "I know a bit about how to make something that's fun to read," he says.

Turner still writes formal diplomatic dispatches, communicating all the "serious and techie stuff" back to London. He has off-the-record lunches with top Ukrainians, hosts UK ministers and throws dinner parties in his cavernous residence. But in the evenings he is our man in front of a laptop. "The blog is a bonus, if you like," he suggests.

Several diplomatic blogs appear in languages other than English. They include Vietnamese, Mandarin and Russian. Turner blogs in both English and Ukrainian. Generally, ambassadors are supportive of their colleagues' blogging efforts. By common agreement, the FCO blog from Zimbabwe is regarded as the best example of the new genre.

In a series of passionate dispatches, the British embassy's former second secretary in Harare, Philip Barclay, vividly described his impressions of life under Robert Mugabe. His limpid style has little in common with bureaucratese; instead he writes a shimmering and virtuoso foreign correspondent prose.

He posted his valedictory blog in April. "The Foreign Office is cruel. I was posted to Zimbabwe despite its awful reputation. I stepped off the plane anxiously, expecting to be butchered at once and fed to lions. This didn't happen, but I have suffered a greater pain – falling in love with this beautiful cursed nation and now, after more than three years, having to leave."

Barclay's successor is Grace Mutandwa, the Harare embassy's press secretary and a former journalist. Mutandwa has maintained the blogging tradition; she writes about the lousy service in Zimbabwe's restaurants, the resilience of its people, and their willingness to embrace green measures – easy, since there is often no electricity.

In her latest blog she describes how a mugger broke the passenger window of her car and tried to steal her handbag: "I yanked the bag out of the thief's hand. He stumbled and almost fell across the road. I had cuts on my fingers, was bleeding heavily but I had my bag."

The FCO launched its blog platform in September 2007. Initially, it had six contributors. They included David Miliband, the FCO's blogger-in-chief. Miliband's blog is one of the most popular, though some of his entries attract no comments. Is the foreign secretary any good? Turner is judiciously praising of his boss's efforts. "It's alleged he writes the blog himself, which is pretty impressive if true," Turner observes.

About half a dozen ambassadors have even taken up Twitter. John Duncan, Britain's Twittering ambassador for multilateral arms control and disarmament, says he uses tweets to talk to experts and journalists interested in non-proliferation issues. "I've got around 700-800 people who follow me," he says.

According to Duncan, the job of being ambassador has changed greatly over the past three decades. "As diplomats we are in many ways selling ideas," he says. He adds that blogging has done much to demystify the work of modern ambassadors. "It's more than cocktail parties. We do very few of them. It's a lot more about negotiating."

Duncan admits, however, that there are things which cross his desk – such as nuclear secrets – that he would not put in his blog: "Diplomacy is still a dark art. There are still things done behind closed doors." Generally, though, blogs have promoted far greater transparency, he argues. "I think it's a very good thing."

So far, only a minority of the UK's 150 heads of mission have embraced blogging. "Digital diplomacy doesn't replace conventional diplomacy. It's just a tool they can use to reach a wider audience," says Stephen Hale, the head of the FCO's digital diplomacy division.

Previously, the most notorious ambassadorial missive was a parting telegram, now known as an eGram. The dispatch – circulated only among diplomats – was an opportunity to settle old scores and slag off their host country. (In his, David Gore-Booth, the late British ambassador to India, rubbished Delhi in 1999 as a "cacophonous cauldron".) The advent of blogging, however, may mean the end of the valedictory cable.

The Ukrainian folk dancers, meanwhile, never did get British visas. "They were dancing to show that they were bona fide dancers," Turner recalled. In the end, he defused a tricky situation by using traditional diplomatic methods. "I invited them in for a cup of tea," he said.

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