The UK’s permanent representative to the EU (let’s call him ambassador, for short) resigned and sent a long email to all his staff. Not the usual ‘thanks for all your hard work’ and ‘I will miss you’ for Sir Ivan Rogers. No, he had a lot to say for himself. About 1400 words.
For all the fuss that has been made about his resignation email, it is an innoccuous document. I read it, and yes, the guy is verbose. If my boss sent me an email that long I doubt very much that I would read it to the end. Even less likely if I knew he was leaving anyway.
But the usual suspects have jumped in front of the cameras to analyse and dissect every nuance and phrase. And whoever has an opinion about what the email ‘really’ means, or the ‘real’ significance of his resignation, has an axe to grind.
Pro-Remain campaigners look for criticisms, implied or imagined, of Theresa May’s premiership. If he tells his staff to challenge muddled thinking, then that must mean he is saying the government is muddled.
For Leave campaigners he is a pro-Europe bureaucrat who has left in a huff because he disagrees with the whole project.
Balderdash. Read the email yourself. It says neither of those things. Unless you want it to say them.
What amuses me the most is the people who trumpet the impartiality of the British civil service. Impartial? Don’t make me laugh. The top knobs in the civil service have their own agendas to push. And Ivan Rogers is no different.
The news must have been very slow for this bland and over-long email to get so much attention from the media.