I see your face all over the news, a backstage player now thrust into the limelight and scrutinised in its glare. I see you keeping your upper lip stiffer than a medicated bonk-on on a porn shoot, determined to keep your dignity as your long and impressive career is brought to an abrupt end. You’re like a blonde Liam Fox, Kim Darroch, if Liam Fox knew what the fuck he was doing and had the respect of, well, anyone.
By all accounts you’re a thoroughly decent and dedicated civil servant. Even in your most scathing of thoroughly British criticisms you barely went above raising an eyebrow over a cup of tea. In a sane world you shouldn’t be going anywhere but it should be absolutely no surprise that any criticism whatsoever is all it takes to tip Donald Trump into a toddler’s meltdown. He’s proven himself time and time again to have skin so thin that standing near him with a paper towel would draw blood out of him through osmosis. “Insecure” is about the nicest way you could put it, with “absolutely fucking pathetic” ringing equally true.
Let’s not forget that this is the man who wanted Nigel Farage as the UK ambassador. He has always wanted and expected nothing less than a fawning, gurning lapdog who’ll rub his feet and stroke what’s left of his hair. That he instead ended up with a man of principle who told the truth as he saw it was always bound to rankle him, and rankle him it absolutely has. The saving grace of the way our diplomatic appointments operate is supposed to be that foreign leaders thankfully don’t get a say in who we choose to represent us.
Or at least they didn’t, until Boris Johnson did as Boris Johnson does and chose to display his spectacular lack of spine. By refusing to stand up for you he exposed his own craven ambition and the hypocrisy of his Brexit tubthumping; turns out we can absolutely expect to remain a vassal state, just of Trump’s America rather than the EU. The special relationship under such terms is hardly going to be equal or comfortable for us – think Janette Krankie getting ploughed over a barrel by Andre the Giant. In what fucking world can Jeremy Hunt come out of any situation looking like a man of principle?
Facing a world where we are going to need committed and principled civil servants more than ever, we’re about to welcome in a prime minister who doesn’t give a moment’s thought to throwing them under the bus. Fair play to you, Kim Darroch, for packing up your shit and leaving with your dignity intact before you’re expected to sacrifice your credibility in the name of that bootlicking shyster. It says far more about the confidence you have in him than what those who know you think of you. Trump is without a doubt all the things you labelled him as and those pretending they don’t think otherwise are the cowards enabling him.
As for you and your future, Kim Darroch?
I see you, your slippers gliding effortlessly off the polished floor, your dressing gown whirling around you as you dance. I smell breakfast cooking on the hob and I hear the Motown classics blasting out of the stereo. I see you flipping pancakes, twisting your hips, beaming from ear to ear as the morning sun shines through the windows.
I hear you whistling to yourself as you pirouette into the lounge, your plate steaming, your mug of coffee hot and fresh. I see you sit in your most comfortable chair, picking up the remote and flicking on the telly. It was a bittersweet end to to long career but life’s too short to regret telling the truth.
As for now? Now you get to enjoy your retirement, Mister Ambassador, watching the Jeffrey Epstein case play out in the morning news. ‘Chaotic’ hasn’t got a thing on this shit.
Life’s good, Kim Darroch. Enjoy it and eat all the Ferrero Rocher you fucking like.
I see you, Kim Darroch. I fucking see you.
