Ambassador

Friday

Ruaridh Nicoll

Celebrating American independence… in Cuba

From our US edition

The US ambassador’s residence in Havana has a beautiful garden that steps down past a blue fountain to a hole in the hedge containing an eagle with spread wings. It’s a lovely place for a party. The trouble is, given the current state of relations between Cuba and the US, cocktails have become a continuation of politics by other means. The embassy invites people who disagree with Cuba’s communist government, and Cuba’s interior ministry stops them from coming. The eagle is pertinent. It once stood atop the monument to the USS Maine, a warship that blew up in Havana harbor in 1898, killing 266 sailors. It seems to have been a terrible accident, but the then-assistant navy secretary, Teddy Roosevelt, blamed Cuba’s then-colonial master, Spain.

Friday

James Heale

Is Mandelson the right pick for US Ambassador?

14 min listen

Last night we got the news that Peter Mandelson is expected to be named the next UK ambassador to Washington. Despite months of speculation, Labour held firm on making a decision until the results of the US election, and with Trump entering the White House in the new year they have gone with an experienced diplomat and a political appointment. A government source is quoted as telling the BBC: ‘The fact the Prime Minister has chosen to make a political appointment and sent Lord Mandelson to Washington shows just how importantly we see our relationship with the Trump administration.’ They cited the former Business Secretary’s ‘unrivalled political and policy experience’ and claimed he was ‘the ideal candidate to represent the UK’s economic and security interests.

Tuesday

Mary Dejevsky

The rise of the female ambassador

It is, of course, an excellent thing and a mark of social progress when an institutional bastion falls to woman-power. If the days are gone when the upper echelons of UK diplomacy were closed to women then so much the better, when a woman who married had to leave the service, and when female diplomats — with the honourable exception of Pauline (now Baroness) Neville-Jones, who resigned after being passed over for Paris — knew better than to hope for the top postings. The 21st century requires no less: entry on equal terms to the men, progression on equal terms to the men, and access to the most senior jobs on equal terms to the men.