Diplomacy (Internet)
Debate between Denis MacShane and Baroness McIntosh of Pickering(14 years ago)
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Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
I have consulted the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) on this debate, both in the House and by e-mail. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman, a distinguished former correspondent of the Financial Times, on raising this issue. One of the most thoughtful Foreign Office Ministers is here with us. His colleague, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), mentioned in the main Chamber the concept of a private realm of information, which was new “dip speak” to me. I do not know whether the Minister will expand a bit on that.
I agree in part with the argument made by the hon. Member for Orpington: the victimisation and the turning of Mr Assange into some kind of hero are wrong. He is quite a squalid customer who is lapping up all the publicity that he is getting at the moment. The quicker we can forget about him, the better.
I do not agree that private communications should be made readily available, for the simple reason that the British diplomatic service is understaffed and one of the smallest, although of the highest quality, in the world. It works on complete frankness in paper communication. If that becomes impossible because people think that their real-time thoughts—which may be relevant on the day but perhaps not so accurate with the hindsight of longer reflection—cannot be transmitted because they can end up on the front page of a paper, the decision-making process here in our nation’s capital will suffer.
Most of the material that I saw as a Minister could have been put straight on to the web. In that sense, I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but equally, he comes from a paper that takes foreign affairs seriously. It is extraordinary that we now learn that the International Committee of the Red Cross provided concrete evidence—
Miss Anne McIntosh (in the Chair)
Order. May I invite the Minister to make the winding-up speech?