Sherard Cowper-Coles

The End of The Blog

It's Tuesday morning, very early, and by Thursday afternoon I will be back home, in Clapham, buying chocolate digestive biscuits at Tesco.

And the blog will be over. It has been fun, though a burden. For the last instalment, I have tried to put together a video picture of a Life in the Day of an Ambassador, starting with me going the Embassy gym at 7 am, and ending with me hosting a dinner.

Typically, and, if I am lucky, I get up at six or thereabouts, to go through the "box": endless emails and other papers, printed off and sorted by my excellent Private Secretary, Alex. I read the main UK papers on the internet, and always Google "Afghanistan" to check for breaking stories. Then, it's (on good days) the Embassy gym, with my bodyguard, and iPod, for 20 minutes (not enough), followed by breakfast (a bowl of porridge) at 7.30, and over to the Embassy as soon as I can manage thereafter. Between 8 and 9 is spent catching up with the overnight email and cable traffic from London, Washington, our NATO delegation, and other posts. Then, at 9, it's the morning meeting: team leaders and a few others, from Sunday to Wednesday, and then the whole Embassy, in our canteen (the only space big enough) on Thursdays.

The rest of the day is taken up with calls, visits and meetings. Typically lunch out, or in the Residence, with an Afghan Minister or politician (this week it will have been the former Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani, and the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Farouk Wardak). Often there are internal Embassy meetings, or briefings, with the different teams: DFID, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the military, and so on. A big feature of life here are video conferences, with London, and with our team down in Helmand.

Most weeks there are journalists or other visitors from Britain to see, usually at the Residence. In the evening, I often host a dinner (four this week), or go out to some official engagement. A free evening is very rare when I am in Kabul.

This is the best job I have ever had. But it is also the most difficult. The blog has helped me, and I hope you, put it in a bit of perspective. Over now to the next Ambassador....

 A Day in the Life of Sherard

Written Transcript

(Sherard) OK, well it's 9 o'clock in the morning and it's the Embassy daily meeting with the team from all the different sections around the Embassy and as usual we're going to start with someone from the political team, in this case Chris Kealey, telling us what's in the overnight cable traffic.

(Chris) Well, there's three in, reporting issues on Iraq, one reporting the Neighbours meeting, which is taking place in Istanbul but also two recording the Secretary of State for Defence's visit to Baghdad, Irbal and Basra.

(Sherard) Hi, it's 11 o'clock in the morning and I've called on Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the former Afghan Foreign Minister and the former Foreign Minister of the Northern Alliance of the Mujahideen and I'm sitting with him in his garden in western Kabul. Dr Abdullah is also the chairman of the Afghan side of the Loya Jurga, the Grand Assembly between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Abdullah.

(Dr Abdullah Abdullah)Thank you Ambassador. In a situation like this where Afghanistan had this opportunity of support from the international community, we have started the process together and Great Britain played the most important role in the whole process. My first words would be words of thanks to the British people, British Government for what they have done and what they are doing.

(Sherard) Hi, I'm in the west of Kabul in the area devastated by fighting during the time of the Mujahideen with the former Afghan Finance Minister and the former Chancellor of Kabul University and one of the architects of the Bonn Agreement, Ashraf Ghani, and he has invited me to lunch at his family home where we've been taking stock, as they say, of the situation. Ashraf, would you like to say a few words for the Foreign Office blog?

(Ashraf Ghani) Of course. First of all I am delighted to welcome you. Second, thank the British people, the British Government, for their very principled support for the Afghan cause; and thirdly, it's winnable but it requires a script and an agreement on the solution of the problem that we can all cooperate.

(Sherard) Yes, well I couldn't agree more and the British Government needs to work with the international community to get its act together and you've got some very interesting ideas on that and we need to work with the Afghan Government to raise our game collectively.

(Sherard) I'm with probably the second most important politician in Afghanistan after the President, the Speaker of the Lower House, the Walesi Jurga, a very prominent national politician, Mr Qanuni, who has just been to the United States and is about to visit Britain as the Speaker of the Afghan Parliament and I'd like to ask Mr Qanuni just to say a word of greeting for the Foreign Office blog.

(Sherard) Well, I understand enough Dari to know that Mr Qanuni was paying Britain and me or the British Government through me a series of extravagant compliments which is too embarrassing to translate.

Posted at 15:12 06 November 2007 by Sherard Cowper-Coles  |  Comments[5]