Sach mining conference trade expo in London last month, he was introduced by then-foreign secretary Jack Straw.
‚The foreign secretary talked about the need to keep in mind that it wasn’t our policy to engage in trade war – that’s a silly idea,‘ says Mr Hogg. ‚I went on to say that he had made his position clear. He said that the world was ready for a sensible foreign policy based on a world of free competition and fair trading, something that seemed to include us as well.‘
What did Mr Straw and his team in Downing Street think about this? At one point during the conference, a colleague asked whether Mr Hogg could introduce him to his British counterpart John Major – who had recently been summoned to attend the conference. Mr Hogg’s colleague, Tony Blair, who was then Foreign Secretary and was not involved in the meeting, was so appalled that he was later ordered to make an official statement.
‚There’s something a little weird about that bit in there,‘ says Mr Hogg. ‚They were quitgospelhitze shocked when I came up to 더킹카지노them and said, „Is this all right, are you g우리카지노oing to speak to me about this with a colleague“‚.
‚I was very embarrassed by the idea of bringing up my situation when someone in the world who had to deal with such a dangerous situation was there,‘ he says. ‚The Foreign Secretary was completely wrong about it – it didn’t matter what my colleagues thought.‘
In a rare public statement, Tony Blair told The Telegraph that he had warned Mr Hogg to steer clear of taking any kind of confrontation with a British opponent – the idea that British diplomats might ‚lose their jobs‘ had been ‚dumb as a brick‘.
Mr Hogg admits his reaction is ‚ludicrous‘. He admits he was’surprised at the tone‘. And he points out that when the Foreign Office sought permission from Brussels to meet with Mr Straw, the British minister insisted on the idea that the French should not take Mr Hogg on, too. ‚When I arrived at the foreign office I was made to promise I would not take the French on,‘ he says.
‚I’m not sure where they got their head around it – I don’t see why I should risk my career when my colleagues would be so embarrassed if I did. There was the sense that maybe, if I did it then maybe the foreign secretary should not have been given the opportunity to say, you know, „I agree with you“.
‚When