Now this is a gaffe (i.e., when a politician/bureaucrat accidentally tells the truth):
In an extraordinary blunder, the usually-guarded Sir Gus said no-one in the U.S. Treasury department was answering telephone calls.
He said it meant the Government was finding it ‘unbelievably difficult’ to hold discussions ahead of the meeting of world leaders in London.
Even though the world was in the grip of the worst economic crisis in decades – top of the G20 agenda – Number 10 was having trouble getting in touch with key personnel, said the Cabinet Secretary.
‘There is nobody there,’ he told a civil service conference in Gateshead.
‘You cannot believe how difficult it is.’
No worries. It’s all part of that new, smart diplomacy that we were promised by the Obama campaign.
Someone has claimed that Obama is being intentionally rude to the Brits and Gordon Brown because his (Obama’s) Kenyan grandfather was one of the ‘mau-mau’ rebels against British rule in the ’50’s.
Heck, it’s a better reason than being so tired as to forget decades of protocol…
I wouldn’t put it past the Brits to get a little pay back for the administration’s dissing of Brown. A few phone calls at odd times, a little leak to the press.
K, you might be right. We are quite good at that sort of thing. I still remember the time a few months back when Youtube was showing a similar subtle insult; a military band playing the Imperial March to introduce the king of Saudi Arabia.
LOL! I didn’t see that — do you suppose it’s still up?