The Kingdom of Spain always sends outstanding ambassadors to the Court of St James, none more so than the appropriately named Santiago de Mora–Figueroa, Marqués de Tamarón, who was en poste when José María Aznar was the Spanish premier. Santiago is also a highly regarded poet, and he has a further advantage. He looks like a Grandee of Spain as painted by Velázquez or Goya. So during one of his recent visits, a good audience assembled to hear him.
There was an obvious agenda: Catalonia, the closely fought left/right conflict in Spanish politics, and Spanish attitudes to Brexit.
We took wit and charm for granted, while awaiting enlightenment and controversy. We waited in vain. All diplomats need to be able to play the forward defensive stroke but no one has ever deployed that essentially negative tactic more stylishly than Santiago.
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