Parting Shots

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On leaving their posts, British diplomats traditionally wrote valedictory dispatches to their colleagues. But in 2006, a missive from the outgoing ambassador to Italy in which he criticised Whitehall's management culture as "bullshit" was leaked to the press, and amid the resulting furore the practice was brought to an end.

The editors have unearthed a number of these documents, and they make for fascinating, if sometimes uncomfortable, reading. Diplomats would use their parting letter to offer their opinions of a country and its people, and there are some appalling generalisations: Sir John Russell described Brazilians as a "tremendously second-rate people" when leaving Sao Paulo in 1969.

But the best are witty and subtle; one discovers that many of our ambassadors were fine essayists. Sir Rodric Braithwaite, who left Moscow in 1992, penned a brief history of Russian politics - a valedictory so rich and erudite it is worth the price of admission alone.

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